CARLOTTA GALL e ISMAIL
KHAN
I militanti
islamici utilizzano l’accordo di settembre nel Nord Waziristan con il governo
pachistano, con cui hanno accettato di porre fine agli aiuti per gli insorti
talebani in Afghanistan, per rafforzarsi nel Nord, finendo con il creare un
mini Stato talebano, una trincea difficilmente espugnabile da europei e
americani.
Il governo
pachistano ha eliminato i punti di controllo, rilasciato i detenuti,
riconsegnato e veicoli armi confiscati, i guerriglieri invece hanno aumentato
le loro attività.
- L’area sta
attirando numerosi gruppi di guerriglieri stranieri (calcolati in 2000),
composti da vecchi leader afgani e talebani, guerriglieri uzbeki e
centro-asiatici, e 80-90 terroristi e fuoriusciti arabi (compresi forse Osama
Bin Laden e il suo vice Ayama al-Zawahri) - che sfidano
l’autorità centrale, e quella delle tribù locali, e si starebbero allargando in
aree confinanti. - Oggi si sta chiudendo il ciclo della storia della
regione di confine tra Nord Afghanistan e Pakistan: - Nel 2002 le tribù locali avevano offerto rifugio ai
militanti islamici ritiratisi dall’Afghanistan dopo l‘invasione americana, un
appoggio che sta svanendo per gli assassinii e le tensioni create con 100
leader locali uccisi quest’anno e 100 lo scorso anno. - I collegamenti tra i vari gruppi musulmani risalgono al
decennio 1980, quando arabi, pachistani ed altri musulmani si unirono agli
afgani per cacciare l’URSS dall’Afghanistan; - usarono campi di addestramento e scuole religiose
create dai servizi segreti pachistani e finanziati da CIA e Arabia Saudita. - L’addestramento continuò con l’appoggio di Pakistan e
a-Qaeda nel decennio 1990, e si trasferì in Afghanistan con i talebani; - fu in questo periodo che si unirono ai talebani molti
guerriglieri pachistani e centinaia di guerriglieri stranieri contro le tribù
del Nord Afghanistan.
Il governo
pachistano non riuscendo a controllare militarmente il Waziristan, concluse
accordi di pace con il Sud nel 2004 e 2005, e con il Nord Waziristan il 5
settembre 2006.
Gli attacchi suicidi
in aumento, sconosciuti per Pakistan e Afghanistan prima del 2001, deriverebbero
dall’influenza di al- Qaeda, che starebbe conducendo un ampio lavoro di
indottrinamento nelle aree tribali.
- I servizi pachistani hanno a
lungo alimentato i militanti islamici nelle aree tribali per far pressine sul
rivale governo afgano. Secondo un terrorista suicida catturato, l’ex
capo dei servizi pachistani finanziata e appoggiava il progetto di
indottrinamento di 500-600 studenti nella regione tribale di Bajaur. L’offerta
dei candidati suicidi sarebbe superiore alla domanda.
Gran parte
dell’addestramento avverrebbe sotto la direzione di personaggi con Jalaluddin Haqqani, uno dei più
importanti comandanti mujaheddin contro i sovietici, che negli anni 1990 si unì
ai talebani. Haqqani avrebbe strette relazioni con i combattenti arabi, tra cui
bin Laden.
- Haqqani
divenne poi il ministro talebano per le questioni tribali e protese i
guerriglieri stranieri usciti dall’Afghanistan nel 2001-2002. - Con il
figlio Sirajuddin Haqqani è il maggior alleato di al-Qaeda in Waziristan.
Sarebbero a lui fedeli molti comandanti talebani e comandanti stranieri, in
particolare uzbeki. - Il
finanziamento dei guerriglieri musulmani proviene da sostenitori religiosi del
Pakistan e del Golfo Persico, e da varie attività illegali. - Le strutture
per l’addestramento sarebbero in varie aree delle aree tribali federalmente amministrate
(FATA) e nel Beluchistan. - Altri
comandanti dei guerriglieri pachistani: - Saddique
Noor, che combatté negli anni 1990 assieme ai talebani, forte oppositore della
presenza di USA e Nato in Afghanistan. - Beitullah
Mehsud, probabilmente il più forte comandante, con 15000 guerriglieri; anche
lui avrebbe combattuto in Afghanistan con i talebani; - entrambi
sono fedeli ad Haqqani - Altro maggior comandante è il mullah Dadullah,
proveniente dal Sud Afghanistan, venuto in primo piano con la ripresa dei
talebani afgani; avrebbe le sue basi in Sud Pakistan, attorno alla città di
Quetta, è speso presente anche in Sud Afghanistan e Nord Waziristan
Nyt 061211
Taliban and Allies Tighten Grip in North of
Pakistan
By CARLOTTA
GALL and ISMAIL KHAN
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Islamic militants are using a
recent peace deal with the government to consolidate their hold in northern
Pakistan, vastly expanding their training of suicide bombers and
other recruits and fortifying alliances with Al Qaeda and foreign fighters,
diplomats and intelligence officials from several nations say. The result, they say, is
virtually a Taliban mini-state.
The militants, the officials say, are openly
flouting the terms of the
September accord in North
Waziristan, under
which they agreed to end cross-border help for the Taliban insurgency that
revived in Afghanistan with new force this year.
–
The area is becoming a magnet for an influx of foreign fighters, who not only challenge government authority in the area, but are
even wresting control from local tribes and spreading their influence to
neighboring areas, according to several American and NATO officials and
Pakistani and Afghan intelligence officials.
This
year more than 100 local leaders, government
sympathizers or accused “American spies” have been killed, several of them in
beheadings, as the militants have used a reign of terror to impose what
President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan calls a creeping “Talibanization.” Last year, at least 100 others
were also killed.
While
the tribes once offered refuge to the militants when they retreated to the area
in 2002 after the American invasion of Afghanistan,
that welcome is waning as the killings have generated new tensions and added to
the region’s volatility.
“They are taking territory,” said one Western
ambassador in Pakistan. “They are becoming much more aggressive in Pakistan.”
“It is the lesson from Afghanistan in the
’90s,” he added. “Ungoverned spaces are a problem. The whole tribal area is a
problem.”
–
The links among the various groups date to the 1980s, when Arabs,
Pakistanis and other Muslims joined Afghans in their fight to drive the Soviet
Union out of Afghanistan, using a network of training
camps and religious schools set
up by the Pakistani intelligence agency and financed by the C.I.A. and Saudi
Arabia.
–
The training continued with Pakistani and Qaeda support through the
1990s, and then moved into Afghanistan under the Taliban. It was during
this time that Pakistanis became drawn into militancy in big numbers, fighting
alongside the Taliban and hundreds of foreign fighters against the northern
tribes of Afghanistan. Today the history of the region has come full circle.
–
Since retreating from Afghanistan in
2002 under American military attacks, the Taliban and foreign fighters have
again been using the tribal areas to organize themselves — now training their
sights on the 40,000 American and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
–
After failing to gain control of the areas in military campaigns, the
government cut peace deals in South Waziristan in 2004 and 2005, and then in
North Waziristan on Sept. 5. Since the September
accord, NATO officials say cross-border attacks by Pakistani and Afghan Taliban
and their foreign allies have increased.
In recent weeks, Pakistani intelligence
officials said the number of foreign fighters in the tribal areas was far
higher than the official
estimate of 500, perhaps as high as 2,000 today.
These
fighters include Afghans and seasoned Taliban leaders, Uzbek and other Central
Asian militants, and what intelligence officials estimate to be 80 to 90 Arab
terrorist operatives and fugitives, possibly including the Qaeda
leaders Osama bin Laden and his second in command, Ayman al-Zawahri.
The tightening web of alliances among these groups in a remote,
mountainous area increasingly beyond state authority is potentially disastrous
for efforts to combat terrorism as far away as Europe and the United States,
intelligence officials warn.
They and Western diplomats say it also portends an even
bloodier year for Afghanistan in 2007, with the winter expected to serve as
what one official described as a “breeding season” to multiply ranks.
“I expect next year to be quite bloody,” the
United States ambassador in Afghanistan, Ronald Neumann, said in a recent interview.
“My sense is the Taliban wants to come back and fight. I don’t expect the
Taliban to win, but everyone needs to understand that we are in for a fight.”
Foreign Influence
One of the clearest measures of the dangers of
this local cross-fertilization is the suicide bombings. Diplomats with
knowledge of the area’s
Pashtun tribes say they have little doubt the tactic emerged from the influence of Al Qaeda, since
such attacks were unknown in Pakistan or Afghanistan before 2001.
This year suicide attacks have become a regular feature of the Afghan
war and have also appeared for the first time in Pakistan, including two
in this frontier province in recent weeks, indicating a growing threat to
Pakistan’s security.
In recent weeks, Afghan officials say they
have uncovered alarming
signs of large-scale indoctrination and preparation of suicide bombers in the
tribal areas, and the Pakistani minister of the interior, Aftab Khan Sherpao,
publicly acknowledged for the first time that training of suicide bombers was
occurring in the tribal areas.
The Afghan intelligence service said last week
in a statement that it had captured an Afghan suicide bomber wearing a vest
filled with explosives. The
man reportedly said he had been given the task by the head of a religious
school in the Pakistani tribal region of Bajaur, and that 500 to 600 students
there were being prepared to fight jihad and be suicide bombers.
–
The bomber said that the former head of Pakistani intelligence, Gen.
Hamid Gul, was financing and supporting the project, according to the
statement, though the claim is impossible to verify. Pakistani intelligence
agencies have long nurtured militants in the tribal areas to pressure the rival
government in Afghanistan, though the government claims to have ceased its
support.
–
So numerous are the recruits that a tribal leader in southern
Afghanistan, who did not want to be named because of the threat of suicide
bombers, relayed an account of how one would-be suicide bomber was sent home
and told to wait his turn because there were many in line ahead of him.
–
American military officials say they
believe much of the training in Waziristan is taking place under the aegis of
men like Jalaluddin Haqqani, once one of the most formidable commanders of the
anti-Soviet mujahedeen forces who joined the Taliban in the 1990s.
–
He has had a close relationship with
Arab fighters since the 1980s, when Waziristan was his rear base for fighting
the Soviet occupation. Arab
fighters had joined him there in the struggle, among them Mr. bin Laden.
– Mr. Haqqani later
became the Taliban’s minister of tribal affairs and was the main protector for
the foreign fighters on their exodus from Afghanistan in 2001 and 2002. He and his son, Sirajuddin Haqqani, remain the most important
local partners for Al Qaeda in Waziristan.
–
Mr. Haqqani bases himself in North
Waziristan and has a host of other Taliban and foreign commanders, in
particular Uzbeks, who are loyal to him, United States military officials say.
–
Money continues to flow in from
religious supporters at home and in the Persian Gulf, as well as from a range
of illicit activities like a lucrative opium trade, smuggling and even
kidnapping, said diplomats, United Nations analysts and local journalists.
“There are clearly very substantial training facilities
that are still operating in Waziristan, both north and south, and other parts
of FATA and Baluchistan,” said a diplomat in Kabul, referring to the region by
the acronym for its formal name, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
“Even more worrying is the continued presence
of the Taliban and Haqqani leadership networks,” the diplomat said, dismayed at
what he characterized as Pakistani passivity in breaking up the networks.
“They haven’t been addressed at all on the
Pakistani side,” he added. “They haven’t been pursued.”
The diplomat also singled out Saddique Noor, a Pakistani
militant commander in his mid-40s who he said was training suicide bombers in
Waziristan and sending them into Afghanistan. Mr. Noor fought in Afghanistan
alongside the Taliban in the 1990s and is a determined opponent of the American
and NATO presence in Afghanistan.
Another commander, Beitullah Mehsud, about 40 and also from
the region, is now
probably the strongest Pakistani Taliban commander and may also be
dispatching suicide bombers. He also fought in Afghanistan under the Taliban
and claims to have 15,000
fighters under him now.
–
Both men are loyal to Mr. Haqqani, whom Western
diplomats consider one of
the most dangerous Taliban commanders because of his links to Al Qaeda and his
strong local standing.
–
The other, for the same reason, is Mullah Dadullah, a ruthless Taliban commander from southern Afghanistan, who has emerged as the main figure in
the resurgence of the Afghan Taliban.
The one-legged Dadullah — he lost a leg in
fighting — has a flamboyant if cruel reputation. He narrowly escaped capture in
northern Afghanistan in 2001, often gives boastful interviews to news agencies,
and is known to have personally ordered the killings of aid workers. His latest
announcement, made in a phone call to Reuters, was that the Taliban had
infiltrated suicide bombers into every Afghan city.
–
He is widely thought to be based in or around the southern
Pakistani town of Quetta but is reported to be constantly on the move. He
visited various areas of southern Afghanistan this year and has traveled to
Waziristan repeatedly, in particular as the tribes of North Waziristan
negotiated their Sept. 5 peace deal with the government, which he sanctioned,
according to local reporters and intelligence officials.
Push for Order
The increasingly urgent question for
Pakistani, Afghan, American and NATO officials is what can be done to bring the
region under control. The Pakistani
government’s latest attempt was the Sept. 5 peace accord in North Waziristan.
Under
the deal, both the government and militants agreed to cease attacks, and the militants
agreed to end cross-border help for the Afghan insurgency, the killings of
tribal leaders and accused government sympathizers, and to cease the
“Talibanization” of the area.
Taliban commanders sanctioned the deals,
arguing that the militants
should concentrate their efforts on the foreign armies in Afghanistan and not
waste their energies on clashing with the Pakistani military,
journalists working in Waziristan say.
Critics say that the agreement is fatally
flawed since it lacks any means of enforcement, and that it has actually
empowered the militants. In a report to be released on Dec. 11, the International Crisis Group,
a Brussels-based research organization, brands it as a policy of appeasement.
The
government has taken down checkpoints, released detainees, returned confiscated
weapons and vehicles and issued an amnesty. But the militants have increased
their activities, benefiting from the truce with the Pakistani military,
the groups said.
“From the start the agreement was not good
because there are too many concessions and no clauses that are binding,” said
Brig. Mahmood Shah, who served as secretary of the Federally Administered
Tribal Areas until 2005. “This agreement is not going to work, and if it is
working, it is working against the government interest.”
Afrasiab Khattak, a local politician and
spokesman for the Awami National Party in Peshawar, also criticized the
agreement. The militants
rather than the traditional tribal leaders have the power now, he said.
“They
have imposed a new elite in Waziristan,” he said. “More
than 200 tribal chiefs have been killed, and not a single culprit brought to
justice.”
Still, Javed Iqbal, the newly appointed
Pakistani secretary of the tribal areas, defended the North Waziristan accord
as an effort to return to the traditional way of running the tribal areas,
through the tribal chiefs. That system, employed by the British and Pakistani
rulers alike, was eroded during the military campaigns of the last few years.
“We have tried the coercive tactic, we did not
achieve much,” he said in an interview in Peshawar. “So what do you do? Engage.”
He said the government had let down the tribal
elders in Waziristan who had wanted dialogue with the government, but were
murdered one after another by the militants. But the big turnout of some 500 to
600 tribal elders at a meeting in Miramshah in North Waziristan in November was
encouraging, he said, and showed that the tribes wanted to engage. “We are back
in business,” he said.
Loss of Control
Some Pakistani officials admit they have made
a serious mistake in allowing the militants so much leeway, but only if they
will not be quoted publicly.
Afghan and Pakistani Taliban leadership
networks run training camps in various parts of the 500-mile length of the
tribal areas, from Baluchistan in the south to the hub of North and South
Waziristan, and farther north to Bajaur, said a Western diplomat in Kabul.
A diplomat who visited Wana, the capital of
South Waziristan, said the government had almost no control over either of the
Waziristans.
“They are absolutely not running the show in
North Waziristan, and it runs the risk of becoming like South Waziristan,” he
said. “In South Waziristan the government does not even pretend to have a remit
that runs outside of its compounds.”
The fundamentalists’ influence is seeping
outward, with propaganda being spread on private radio stations, and through a
widening network of religious schools and the distribution of CDs and DVDs. It
can now be felt in neighboring tribal departments and the settled areas of the
North-West Frontier Province. In recent months, Pakistani newspapers have
reported incidents of music and barber shops being closed, television sets
burned and girls’ schools threatened.
The militants are more powerful than the
military and the local tribal police, kill with impunity and shield criminals
and fugitives. Local journalists say people blame the militants for a rising
tide of kidnappings, killings, robberies and even rapes.
The brutality of some foreign militants has
led to rising discontent among their Pakistani hosts, many of whom are also
armed and militant, making the region increasingly volatile and uncontrollable.
“Initially, it was sympathy,” one Pakistani
intelligence official said. “Then came the money, but it was soon followed by
fear. Now, fear is overriding the other two factors, sympathy and money.”
For now, however, the Taliban commanders and
the Pakistani militants under them remain unswervingly loyal to jihad in Afghanistan
and, despite the tensions, still enjoy local support for the cause, officials
and local journalists say.
The failed government military campaigns of
recent years, which are seen as dictated by the United States, have further radicalized
the local population, many in the region say.
As a potential indicator of local support, the
families of two suicide bombers sent to Afghanistan from Waziristan gained renown
in the community, according to a local journalist.
“The people support the militants because they
are from their own tribe, they are family,” said the journalist, who asked not
to be named out of fear of the militants.
Morale is high among the resurgent Taliban
after their revival in Afghanistan this year, one Pakistani security official
said. That will lead to still more recruitment and better organization and
planning in the year ahead.
Fighting traditionally dies down in winter
because of the inhospitable conditions in the mountains.
But the new fighting season in the spring will
be even bloodier, a Western diplomat in Kabul said. “We have to assume that
things will be bad again,” he said, “because none of the underlying causes are
being addressed.”
David Rohde contributed reporting to this
story from Kabul, Afghanistan.
Copyright 2006 The New York Times Company