State Dept (finally) designates Maulvi Nazir group

The US Department of State has announced, rather belatedly, that what it theatrically refers to as the ‘Commander Wazir Group’ of South Waziristan and one of its alleged leaders , ‘Sub Commander Malang Wazir’ are to be designated as a global terrorists. Steady on boys! This is not South America! A detailed investigation into the various factions in South Waziristan written by Mansur Khan Mahsud of the FATA Research Centre in 2010, makes no mention of Maulvi Nazir's group being known by this name.

Leaving aside the fact that Maulvi Wazir himself was killed in a US drone strike in January, it seems a little odd to me that State has decided to designate ‘sub commander’ Malang Wazir, who is known to be part of the leadership, but has chosen not to mention Bahawal Khan, also called Salahuddin Ayubi, who was announced as Nazir's successor.

Bahawal Khan, said to be aged 34 and an illiterate former bus driver, is a long-time close associate of Mullah Nazir, the two men having fought together alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan before the 2001 US invasion. Bahawal Khan is seen as hot-tempered, unlike his predecessor.

Momentous events in South Waziristan.

What was behind the decision of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribesmen of South Waziristan to issue an ultimatum to 40,000 displaced Mahsud tribespeople to leave Wana by 5th December?
The decision - later extended to 15 December - was taken at a jirga held in Rustam Bazaar in Wana, attended by elders from all nine subtribes of the Ahmadzai Wazirs. Overseeing the jirga was Maulvi Nazir, the pro-government militia commander who, only days before, had been injured in a targeted suicide attack in the same town that killed eight of his companions.

As far as the jirga was concerned, the attackers of Maulvi Nazir were from the Mahsud tribe and they were therefore entitled to tell them to leave. There is a long history of bitterness and rivalry between the two tribes, and this recent incident has been used by political officials to encourage the Ahmadzai Wazirs to act against the Mahsuds.
The Mahsuds, in turn, form the backbone of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Pakistani Army action aimed at the TTP in South Waziristan is the reason there are so many Mahsuds living temporarily in Wana. Many of their homes have been destroyed or are in areas that are too dangerous for occupation.
Some sources say that the suicide attacker tasked with killing Maulvi Nazir was despatched by Hakimullah Mahsud, leader of the TTP. The attack was an attempted revenge for the killing of Wali Muhammad on July this year. Wali Muhammad was a close associate of Hakimullah and had only returned to South Waziristan recently, having been expelled by Maulvi Nazir in the past. (more on the background to this feud can be found here).
In the past the Ahmedzai Wazirs have usually attempted to settle their differences with the Mahsuds, not least because they have always needed their agreement to get access to DI Khan and other border areas. The Mahsuds control access to important strategic roads - such as that running from Tank-Jandola-Wana - and have been able to exert a stranglehold on the Wazirs in the past.
However, that era may now have come to an end with the opening of a new road on 18 June this year. Built by the Pakistani Army with American money, the 105-km Kaur-Gomal-Tanai-Wana road means that the Wazirs no longer need permission from the Mahsuds to connect with the rest of the country (more on this here).
Tribal politics in FATA are complex and this may not be the end of the matter. Already, Pakistani officials are talking about putting pressure on the Utmankhel Wazirs in North Waziristan to expel Mahsud tribesmen from Miramshah.
All of these events may be the reason that rumours are growing of a split within the leadership of the TTP. Hakimullah's policy of war against the Pakistani state appears now to come with a price tag that is too high for many of his fellow tribesmen to bear. No wonder that Waliur Rahman, touted as someone who can cut a deal with the military and also turn TTP guns towards Afghanistan, is being spoken about as a future leader of the organisation.

Ilyas Kashmiri's big mistake

How was it that Ilyas Kashmiri, the much-feared commander of al-Qaeda's 313 Brigade - so-named after the 313 companions that stood at the Prophet's side at the Battle of Badr - came to be killed, along with seven others in an orchard south of Wana in South Waziristan last week (see below)?
According to some reports, Kashmiri was discussing what al-Qaeda and its allies should do in the event of a Pakistani incursion into neighbouring North Waziristan. Pakistan's military has been under American pressure for months to launch attacks against the notorious Haqqani network and its supporters in North Waziristan, from where they launch attacks on Coalition forces in Afghanistan. Significant elements of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan from the Mahsud tribe who were formerly based in South Waziristan are also sheltering there, ever since they were chased out of their traditional tribal lands in a 2009 army offensive.
Kashmiri had only been in the district a few hours when he was killed in a targeted drone strike. Hardly surprising really; his very presence in South Waziristan was a threat to a 2007 peace agreement between the Ahmadzai Wazirs and the government under which the tribe agreed not to attack Pakistani forces or to allow foreign militants into their district. The Waziris had previously risen up against the Arabs and many Uzbeks from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who had settled amongst them and who had become notorious for their cruelty. More than 200 Uzbeks were killed by the Waziris and the survivors were forced north, where they were given shelter by other Pashtun tribes.
As recently as March this year the nine clans of the Ahmadzai Waziris agreed to stick to the terms of the 2007 treaty, although the local district officers were pushing for it to be made tougher on the tribes.
So when Ilyas Kashmiri, a former Pakistani army officer who was reknowned for his brutality and who was certainly involved in serious attacks on the Pakistani armed forces - including the recent attack on the PNS Mehran naval base - arrived in the district, trouble was likely to follow.
Kashmiri was staying at the home of a tribesman known to be a supporter of Maulvi Nazir, an Ahmadzai Wazir and leader of the local chapter of the Tehreek-e-Taliban. Nazir had also signed the 2007 peace deal, but is known to be sympathetic to both al-Qaeda and the TTP.
However, other tribesmen in the area are unlikely to have taken such a sympathetic attitude towards Kashmiri, correctly realising that his presence would only bring further trouble to the area, particularly if he was the part of an advance guard of Punjabis and foreign fighters fleeing an army offensive further north. It would not have been long before someone reported his location to the military authorities. And they in turn, anxious to provide proof to the Americans that they are serious about fighting terrorism, and also determined to settle scores with a perceived turncoat, tipped off the CIA.

Pak Taliban flees in front of army offensive

The Pakistan Army announced today that four weeks after the start of Operation Rah-e-Nijat, its forces had entered into the town of Makeen in South Waziristan, having already routed the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan from a whole swathe of the region. This is no small feat. The militants had been left largely to their own devices in this region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) for many years and had built up huge stockpiles of weapons and hidden arms dumps.
The last time the army attempted to enforce its writ in this area, in 2008, it was forced into a humiliating retreat. Then, in order to ensure the safe extraction of 300 of its soldiers holed up in a fort at Ladha, a few miles to the south of Makin, the army agreed to withdraw from the area and cede the fort to Baitullah Mahsud and his militants to be used as a "dispensary".
This time it is different. The speed of the Rah-e-Nijat offensive against the much-feared Mahsuds and their TTP and al-Qaeda allies has been truly astounding. The three-pronged Army offensive has captured just about every major town and village in the region, including Sherwangi, Kotkai, Kaniguram and Sararogha.
What is different this time? According to the Army itself, it has been done by adopting the very tactics used successfully in the past by the tribesmen. Instead of moving slowly and cautiously along the few roads in the area, where they would always be sitting targets for ambushes and IEDs, the troops have stuck to the hills, taking over ridges and commanding features before moving down to enter a built-up area.
"We have beaten them at their own tactic. This has been the classic Mehsud tactic, encircling and ambushing the enemy from the ridges and commanding features and we did the same to them. They were not prepared for this,’ one official told The Dawn newspaper .
In addition, the army has sent in 30,000 troops, many more than in previous incursions into the area. But probably the most important factor was air power from the Pakistan Air Force and the Army's aviation wing. Recently supplied with American high resolution cameras and night vision goggles - and using its own unmanned aerial vehicles (see my posting below) - the jets and helicopters were able to pick off their targets. The Taliban suddenly found that they no longer "owned the night", as they had done in the past.
In each engagement, the militants found themselves outgunned and outsmarted. Before long, even the allegedly tough Uzbek fighters had had enough and many have now decamped to other FATA agencies, including North Waziristan and Orakzai. The Pakistan Army claims to have killed around 500 militants for a loss of only 40 soldiers.
The TTP claim that they are making a tactical retreat only to draw in the army so that it can be better destroyed. However, this is merely talk. As several army officers have already asked, what kind of force that is intent on fighting leaves its weapons and arms dumps behind?
"When somebody retreats, he takes his weapon to fight another day. He does not flee and abandon his weapons. What has happened is that they have left behind huge cache of arms and ammunition", said one officer.
The real question is what happens next. If the Mahsuds and the TTP really are comprehensively defeated and sue for peace, it will have a dramatic impact on the fighting across the border in Afghanistan. We can expect a massive fall-off in attacks in eastern Afghanistan and perhaps a haemorrhage of the more ideologically driven fighters (including many of the foreigners) into Baluchistan.
The Paksitan government is likely to support the formation of tribal lashkars in South Waziristan to restore power to the traditional tribal leaders at the expensive of Hakimullah Mahsud and his clan.
However, the following points should be borne in mind. First, the successes so far are due in no small part to the decision by the Ahmadzai Wazir militant commander Maulvi Nazir in Wana and Hafiz Gul Bahadar to stay neutral and not join the fight.
Second, lashkars will only be formed once the non-TTP tribesmen are certain that the TTP will not be returning to impose their will (and take revenge) on the region.
Third, and most important, Pakistan's military has still not given up on the Afghan Taliban. It only acted against the TTP because it had begun to challenge the writ of the state. Until the Army accepts that the whole Taliban project on both sides of the border is doomed, the conflict is likely to continue. We are still a long way from that.

The Pakistan Taliban's tribal rivals

Guardian reporter Declan Walsh has a fascinating half-interview with Misbahuddin Mehsud, leader of the Abdullah Mehsud group, one of at least four factions in Pakistan's Pashtun tribal areas that is opposed to the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Hakimullah Mehsud.
Walsh met Misbahuddin in the frontier town of Dera Ismail Khan, but after initial pleasantries, the tribal fighter declined to answer any direct questions, referring them all to an aide. The aide confirmed that the Abdullah Mehsud group is helping the Pakistan Army in its campaign against Hakimullah's TTP by sealing off the southern border of South Waziristan.
Like the other groups in the region that have come to an agreement with the Pakistan Army - the Turkistan Bhittani group, Maulvi Nazir's group and Hafiz Gul Bahadur's group - the Abdullah Mehsud group is primarily opposed to Hakimullah's TTP because of recent attacks on civilians and the Pakistan Army.
All of these groups are strongly in support of cross-border actions against the Afghan Army and Coalition forces in Afghanistan. In this aspect they neatly reflect the schizophrenic outlook of many in Pakistan's military and political elites, who only began to worry about the fundamentalist Islamists when they focussed their attention on introducing Wahhabism into Pakistan.