Date: June 17th 2008

Date: 17.6.08

The Pioneer Edit Desk

By warning that attacks by Taliban operatives living in sanctuaries inside Pakistan are becoming an insurmountable problem for Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai is speaking for more than just himself. It is clear Kabul is relaying a message from Washington, DC. The Afghan President has threatened to send his troops across the Durand Line, either in hot pursuit or in pre-emptive action. It is important to see the current exchange of words in context. As is well-known, jihadi armies have been based in Waziristan and the North-West Frontier Province ever since they were driven out of Kabul and Kandahar by the American-led forces in 2001. Attempts to quell, divide or buy peace with them have failed for a complex mix of reasons. First, Islamabad has, over the past seven years, refused to allow foreign security forces to enter these areas, even though the Pakistani state has only notional control over them. Second, after realising that his Army did not have the capacity -- or per
haps the desire -- to pacify the frontier regions, Gen Pervez Musharraf quietly gave up. As a shrewd diplomat, he played both sides. He told the Americans he was doing what he could, gave the frontier chiefs and militas just enough breathing space and sought to explain every act of surrender as tactical retreat. In recent months two things have happened. One, by assassinating Benazir Bhutto in close proximity to the Rawalpindi headquarters of the Pakistani Army and then, just days ago, blowing up part of the Danish embassy in Islamabad's supposedly sanitised diplomatic zone, the jihadis have completely exposed the Pakistani security establishment. That apart, in the absence of Gen Musharraf, the US is dealing with a chaotic, confused civilian Government that doesn't even have notional authority and a new Army leadership that is keen to be seen as distancing its strategic goals from those of a final-year Bush Administration. The result has been increased activity on the Afghan frontier as well as the Line of Control that divides Jammu & Kashmir. For both Islamabad and the Kabul-Washington alliance, the July 11 incident in the Mohmand tribal area was an act of grave provocation. Pakistani Taliban fighters crossed into Afghan territory and were challenged by Allied forces. They were helped, it would appear, by paramilitary troops on the Pakistani side of the border. In the skirmish that followed, the US Air Force took recourse to air strikes, killing Taliban desperadoes and 11 Pakistani soldiers.

While the civilian Government in Islamabad has condemned the USAF bombing but sought to play down the incident, Mr Karzai's statement suggests Afghanistan and the US see it differently. There is little choice in the matter. A degree of determined military action inside Pakistani territory is unavoidable if the war on terror is to be won and if Afghanistan and, on the other front, Jammu & Kashmir and the rest of India, are to live in relative peace. Since September 11, 2001, the Pakistani military and state have been trusted with this action but have proved incapable and inefficacious. As such, whether it is autonomous action by NATO troops or a more institutionalised arrangement under the auspices of the United Nations peace-keeping mechanism, trans-national forces will inevitably be needed. After all, Pakistan is no longer the frontline state - it is the battleground.