Taliban Attacks Signal Desperation

The Taliban have had many recent opportunities to learn how to fight a good insurgency in both urban areas (from Baghdad/Diyala/Mosul/Basrah, etc) and rural, desert areas (Afghanistan, Anbar). There's a lot of smart stuff they've been doing in Afghanistan to keep NATO off-balance. But in Pakistan, their mistakes are starting to grow--and show.

Part of the problem is context. The Taliban are recycling some old concepts that have worked in the past, but are not particularly useful here. The two of note are its strategy in Mingora, and its attack strategy in Lahore and Peshawar.

The Taliban Mingora strategy--to sit and hold--had worked before. Ineffectual Pakistani Army attacks in the past balked at real resistance and urban warfare, dissolving before damage was seriously done. Further, such defeats crushed morale and domestic support for military operations. Doing the same seemed wise enough, but the Taliban did not estimate the ire they had caused among the Pakistani people. With domestic support, the Army was able to send a sufficiently sized and resourced force to retake Mingora rather easily (much more easily than the US took Fallujah). The Taliban were not prepared.

Perhaps as importantly, the Taliban offensive strategy is almost certainly a mistake. They're taking a few pages out of the al-Qaeda book, trying to intimidate the population into submission with attacks (although on police) in multiple cities: Lahore and Peshawar so far. Islamabad is probably next on the list of targes. The idea, of course, is to let the population know that they are not safe as long as they continue to assault--that the Taliban can hit anywhere, at any time. This isn't strictly-speaking true, but they certainly want to give off that impression.

Unfortunately for the Taliban, such attacks are likely to bolster the emerging story told in Pakistan that not only is the Taliban a major threat to Pakistan's survival, but they're an urgent threat to the individual citizens of Pakistan right now, and must be cleared sooner rather than later. When dealing with a committed enemy, minor hurts tend not to deter them--only enrage them. If the Taliban is going to try and beat Pakistan at this point, it will either require staying sufficiently below the radar that the current commitment dissolves, or require destroying their capability right now--which is highly unlikely. But after years of offensives, the Taliban may not have the patience nor the wisdom to be able to seep back into the walls and make themselves hard to hit. Hard-won territory in Swat and Waziristan will unlikely be easily given up--but by choosing to take the Pakistanis head-on and agitate their population, the Taliban show a level of desperation to keep their position that will ultimately be detrimental to their cause.

Retaking Mingora--and Pakistan

Mingora has been called "Taliban City" over the past few years. While the Taliban have a large presence in many districts of NWFP and FATA, this was their power base. But the Pakistani military offensive has proven either brilliant or lucky over the past month, leading to an increasing likelihood that the military will score a shattering victory over the Taliban in this particular offensive. I'll discuss below a few points of interest.

Taliban Hubris and Error: The Taliban grew incredibly confident in their ability to walk all over the Pakistani government over the past few years, and they reverted from their insurgent campaign to a largely-conventional stance in many areas, Mingora included (the advantage of a conventional stance is that it is easier to suppress and control the population, set up a government, costs less to operate: one does not need to hide in caves, etc). But such a stance makes the Taliban incredibly vulnerable to a better-trained conventional force. With the incoming Pakistani offensive, the clever thing to do might have been to slip out to fight another day, leaving traps to greet the incoming soldiers--Army personnel would have died (in some number) and spent a great deal of time pouring house-to-house to find nothing. It would have been tough on morale, and allowed the Taliban to regroup and re-assess. But the Taliban--many of them--chose to tough it out and fight house-to-house, and all reports indicate that they're being crushed. Those that chose to escape have a surprise in waiting...

The Commando Raid: 300 or so Commandos from the Pakistani Army raided a Taliban base located 14 miles to the north of Mingora over the past two weeks. The fighting was difficult--massive trench and tunnel networks in the mountains prevented large ammunition from having any effect, so the Commandos had to eliminate Taliban the hard way. But the Army claims that the raid was successful. In all likelihood, paramilitary and Commandos await the arrival of fleeing, disorganized Taliban that hope to seek refuge in the mountain base. If this is the case, it would be an incredibly efficient and effective use of force. The Commando raid is going to be a particularly effective bolster to domestic support: the camp was used as a training ground for forcibly recruited children to make them suicide bombers--dozens of children were rescued. PR doesn't get much better than that.

House-to-house in Mingora: There are about 10-20,000 civilians trapped in Mignora, which is making the fighting incredibly slow and deliberate. But from what little reporting I've dug up, the Army seems to be in possession of most of Mingora, having killed about 1000 militants (and having lost about 50 of its own). These numbers may be wrong, but time will tell. Nonetheless, civilian casualties seem to be extremely low, and Mingora appears to be all but captured. If civilian casualties are kept to a minimum, then the Army will have proven itself to its people as capable of dealing with the Taliban threat--and the days of ineffectual "peace" deals will be over. The Army would have the opportunity to turn on its toes and continue pursuit all the way to the Afghan border.

Pushing North:The Pakistani military has taken two significant towns to the northwest of Mingora, as well. The choice seems to be an attempt to not only isolate the Taliban in Mignora from reinforcements and resupply, but also to capture or kill any escaping militants--such a move would be a sign that Pakistan is putting as much effort as possible into making this victory as decisive as possible.

Steadfast Commitment:Maj. General Abbas, who leads the Pakistani army's PR department, has made it clear through a number of press statements that the Pakistani military is committed to continuing the campaign. The recapture of Swat will be the beginning: he has claimed that it will be a "blueprint" for other areas, specifically Khyber, North and South Waziristan. These three provinces all border Afghanistan, signaling that the Pakistani government understands the need to eliminate Taliban influence throughout the AfPak region--rather than just the buds growing near Islamabad. And if this operation ends as well as it has begun, the army will have all the political support it needs to get the job done.

Fighting for Freedom: Their confidence bolstered by the coming success of the Army's campaign, villagers in Pakistan are taking up arms against the Taliban in hopes of driving them out (knowing that reinforcements will not be coming for their regional overlords). Such a move is a bit dangerous--if it fails, it will spell disaster. But there exists a tipping point, at which if enough villagers do indeed take up arms against the Taliban, the Taliban's ability to deal with such uprisings will be overwhelmed, and their control over any area with such a critical mass will collapse. If they're thinking on their toes, Pakistan should be pushing their paramilitary forces to these areas to support and encourage disruption in the Taliban's power base, which would further degrade the Taliban's organization (and reduce support to the Afghan Taliban).

The Future: A Full Pincer Offensive? If the Pakistani military is going to push into Waziristan and Khyber, then the Afghani Taliban is certainly going to lose critical support from its rear, making it more vulnerable than it has been in years. The Afghani Taliban is much smarter and more hardened than its Pakistani brethren--it has been fighting NATO since late 2001. It remains in an "insurgent" stance, but the strength of such a stance often depends on some base from which insurgents can receive weapons and ammunition, supply, etc. With NATO in control of areas north of Taliban territory, a Pakistani Army conquering of NWFP and FATA could potentially leave the Afghani Taliban without a route through which to bring arms and ammunition, making the fight (at worst) a war of supply attrition, which NATO could easily (if slowly) win. It is unclear whether the people of Pakistan see the Taliban as a sufficiently deadly enemy that they are willing to put aside their long-standing sourness towards the United States, but if they are, the cooperation between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and NATO would likely together be enough to scatter the Taliban and finally begin to provide real security.

Flushing the Taliban Out?

This will be a short blog post. I'm getting word from Al Jazeera that the Pakistani army is "flushing out" Taliban from main Swat cities, and that the Taliban are now "on the run." Apparently about 700 Taliban have been killed in Swat in the last 4 days, which is about 1/6 to 1/7 the 4000-5000 militants in the area.

But with most of these Taliban on the run, the Army may not actually be successfully accomplishing goals that lead to the long-term security of the AfPak (as it's called) region. There are benefits to routing and disorganizing an enemy force--they are less effective in future combat, they cannot launch offensives, and indeed, you take the territory. But the entire point of an insurgency is to run when the heavy weapons come, and to slowly seep and sneak back into an area being held by the government, and use terror/hit-and-run tactics to grind them down. Like Vietnam and Iraq, causing the enemy to turn tail and run is only a short-term victory. They will find refuge elsewhere (there is a great deal of space in northwest Pakistan and southeast Afghanistan in which they can take refuge) and come back to fight another day. Unfortunately, in the case of hardline militants, the only ways to achieve victory are to A) convince them not to fight (which is unlikely with a single flushing) or B) kill them all. Killing some large portion of them with a grinding and bloody operation would have certainly gotten the job done to a large extent, but it would have cost large numbers of civilian and army lives. But by not paying the price now, the Army may have to pay a greater price later in the form of a coordinated vengeance attack.

There is an alternative explanation, that I am quietly hoping that Pakistani tacticians have elected. If the Pakistani Army was not willing to deal with massive casualties in door-to-door fighting (which is understandable), then urban warfare would not be an option. There is a second option that would require more finesse and fewer casualties--though the finesse part may be tough to muster. If the Pakistani Army can effectively rout the militants and channel them (by cutting off alternative escape routes) into some relatively obvious hiding spot, then the Taliban will have lost their defensive advantage: they will be on relatively unfamiliar ground, they will be disorganized, they will have lost much of their weaponry, and they will no longer be "dug in" to an urban area, well-placed for brutal urban combat. If they enter an unfamiliar mountain range, then not only do they have less preparation and ammunition, but they also (more importantly) are no longer shielded by civilians to endless bombing and artillery. The Pakistani army can spare lives and throw metal instead at the problem, and simply surround the mountain region to catch and capture or destroy any escaping militants. Such a tactic could create Taliban casualty rates that would spiral towards 100%.

It's unclear whether that's the Pakistani Army's tactic of choice. If it was, they wouldn't be advertising it. If it's not, then they may instead try a very thorough hearts-and-minds counterinsurgency campaign in the city to win the loyalty of the population and keep the Taliban from coming back. Unfortunately, most civilians from Swat urban centers are in refugee camps that are undersupplied at best. The Army will struggle to win their loyalty to an extent that exceeded their loyalty pre-invasion.

Alternatively again, the Pakistani Army might intend to simply use a series of cheap "flushing" maneuvers on the Taliban until they retreat, in a disorganized way, into Afghani space, at which point better-trained NATO troops might be able to eliminate them. At such a juncture, the Pakistani Army would be able to close in on Taliban bases and safe zones, and eliminate the free operating area that the Taliban had in Pakistan. And frankly, this may be the only way that NATO got the Pakistani Army to agree to the operation--if NATO was willing to do the actual hard work in fighting the Taliban to the death, then the Pakistani Army would return the favor by ensuring (as best as they could) that the Taliban have no safe zones in Pakistan. While it would result in higher NATO casualties early, it would mean a significant strategic victory, and quite possibly a full turnaround in the war in the area.

If this is the case, I tip my hat to President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton for excellent strategic diplomacy. But I may be being optimistic.

Closing In on the Taliban

The Pakistani Army is actually making a push to rid Swat Valley's major urban centers of Taliban militants, one city at a time--and starting with the biggest.

Mingora is apparently home to 4000-5000 Taliban fighters, who seem to be bent on reinforcing defensive positions rather than trying to sneak out with civilians. Sneaking out with civilians would likely require leaving behind weapons caches that the Pakistani Army would scoop up, as well as likely exposing their commanding officers (well-known to the Pakistani Army by now) to helplessness; the Taliban would probably rather take their chances fighting it out.

And there is some precedent for just that. The last major venture into Taliban territory ended in disaster for Pakistani troops: they were ambushed and torn apart. But these are not paramilitary patrolmen on the offensive. Pakistan is sending commandoes and shock troops to spearhead door-to-door fighting, and will be following up with regulars (who are surprisingly well-trained). What is likely is that the paramilitary will be surrounding the city, providing forward defense for any counter-attacks by the Taliban from elsewhere, and preventing escape. The Army probably intends to neutralize as many of these fighters as possible, rather than simply flushing them out (because, frankly, they would just pop up somewhere else).

This will be bloody. But my money's on the Pakistani army in this battle. They seem to have the will to suffer (and inflict!) the casualties necessary to get the job done. Somehow, they have either mustered courage or worked a deal on the Indian border, such that they actually have some of their best troops in the northwest rather than the southeast. And, almost certainly, they have NATO support.

A major victory here, especially one that leads to the rounding up of thousands of militants, is likely to have positive effects in the future, for a few reasons. First, morale will be high, and the will to keep fighting will remain (a major defeat may send the Pakistanis reeling into peace-seeking again, though we can hope that they've learned their lesson from the Swat deal). Second, the Army will be at a major tactical advantage (with literally 4,000 fewer militants hanging around, with weapons caches cleaned up, etc, they will have to spend less time on the defensive and can spend more hunting). Third, this may even go very far in the necessary hearts-and-minds campaign in the northwest. As the Pakistani people grow more exhausted of the Taliban, the Army has the potential to become a welcome relief. If they can root out the threat, provide security, aid resettlement of the refugees (of which there are now hundreds of thousands), and provide aid (food, water, trash pickup)--not to mention freedom from the Taliban's harsh sharia rule over the area--then they are likely to forge allies among the civilians in the area.

It's an exciting time in Pakistan. This could be the first major turnaround in the war on the Taliban since 2001. I'll keep you guys updated on it.

Swat Deal Going South

As Pakistani Taliban march (mostly unopposed) closer and closer to Pakistan's capital, Pakistani leadership is starting to get jittery. While not canceling the peace deal altogether, President Zardari has given the military a go-ahead to hit the Taliban hard and push them back. Fighting has broken out already; the Pakistani military is showing its training gives it a hard edge over the Taliban in conventional battles.

It's unclear what this particular operation is besides a knee-jerk reaction, and it--frankly--probably will not on its own be the beginning of an offensive into the northwestern frontier regions. But it may be a sign that opinion polls are starting to change. The closer the Taliban gets to the capital, the more it becomes clear to the Pakistani people that the Taliban are a threat to the security of everyone in the country and to the very existence of the Pakistani state as we know it. Until now, most Pakistanis thought that the problem would go away if the US pulled out, and that the Taliban did not have aspirations to conquer the region. It's becoming more clear that they do.

The Taliban have not held up their end of the Swat deal to lay down their arms and halt expansion. As discussed earlier, a deal with the Taliban had the strong potential to turn Swat valley into an untouchable safe haven from which to train, arm, organize, and then launch attacks elsewhere. And it looks like that's exactly what the Taliban are doing. But while breaking the Swat deal may have given the Taliban a tactical advantage, they may push the Pakistani people over a threshold of sufficient resolve to begin an all-out offensive. Such an offensive, which could be heavily funded, supported, and aided by the US, might have the potential to seriously rout Taliban leaders that have spent the past few years not having to deal with conventional warfare. More than likely, the Taliban have taken a path-of-least-resistance in the northwestern frontier regions, letting themselves operate more openly and conventionally in a region where they were not being bothered, and supporting their more guerrilla brethren in Afghanistan. If this is true, bringing to bear the might of the Pakistani army might leave them disorganized long enough for the US to be able to make an offensive in Afghanistan.

Should such a pincer maneuver work, the next step would require the hasty-but-effective deployment of indigenous local security forces loyal to the Pakistani and Afghani states. Such a task is easier said than done, but it is something that will be much easier done with a scattered and disorganized Taliban than a fully entrenched and offensive one.

Hopefully, Mr. Obama is ready to take advantage of the Swat deal going south. He needs to be able to propose a better alternative--and this alternative would include getting India to back off long enough for Pakistan to shift some troops to the north. But India is going to want attention dealt to the Kashmir region, as well, which is full of largely Pakistani Intelligence-supported insurgents and terrorists.

Swat Valley Update: Ceasefire is Go

It seems Pakistan's Swat region is going to settle down. At least for the moment. The Taliban (by which I mean the local Cleric-Warlord, Sufi Muhammed) has signed off on an "indefinite ceasefire" with the government. Apparently there isn't any fighting right now, either--but there's usually only sporadic killing/bombing/terrorizing when government troops aren't there. So there's little to say on effectiveness yet.

There are legitimate concerns that this is (as Prof. Barry Posen calls it) "the Pause that Refreshes," allowing the Taliban to bring up reserve troops, regroup, plan, resupply, etc. The Taliban may be cleverly fooling a desperate Pakistani army into taking the pressure off at a critical moment. Most radical Clerics are relatively evangelical and expansionist. Why stop here, if he has been able to take over 70% of the Swat region, and gains a military advantage by the ceasefire?

If Pakistan hopes to make this ceasefire final, it must regroup itself and present a credible deterrent. It must make clear, somehow, that breaking the ceasefire (in a serious way) will make the Taliban's collective lives extremely difficult. The incentives must work out: if messing with the ceasefire and trying to expand influence is not worth the cost of having to deal with the Pakistani Army, then you have a ceasefire that is likely to hold for a while.

How to make that happen is another story.

Negotiations with Taliban Show Mixed Results

Pakistan and Afghanistan have serious, and worsening, Taliban problems. And I'll admit openly that I believe that negotiation with the Taliban is necessary for peace--they are a huge chunk of both countries and they are well left-out of the political process. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the recent deal in Swat to grant Sharia law in two Pakistani districts for peace. The US has openly given it a hard time, but apparently privately supported it.

So far, it's off to a rocky start. The top Pakistani official in Swat has been kidnapped by the Taliban, though may have been released. This represents a serious problem with the deal that plagues many deals with non-state actors: the "group" is loosely-affiliated enough that not everybody will agree to what one negotiator says. So, even though this cleric that dealt with Pakistan is probably genuinely in favor of not continuing to fight, his promises aren't particularly credible because he does not have authoritative control over the region. So other Taliban members will largely shrug their shoulders and continue doing whatever it is they do.

The other serious problem with such an agreement is that it can create a safe haven. Even if the Swat valley dies down in violence, Taliban from other regions, including Afghanistan, may well use it for sanctuary as they gather munitions/plan attacks/spread propaganda/communicate/whatever it is they do. The Taliban is a big, diverse group of people with many diverse interests. One of those, obviously, is punting NATO. No amount of Sharia law will actually get the fighting in Afghanistan to stop, and insomuch as there is more solidarity between Pakistani Taliban and Afghani Taliban than there is between Pakistani Taliban and the West (hint: there's lots more), those Pakistani Taliban will continue to assist their Muslim brethren in attempting to boot the Western Imperialists. Such a deal might actually make the lives of the US harder.

So, how is this a mixed bag? Well, it might show that negotiating works. When you lack the capacity to win at costs acceptable to you, then you negotiate. This is something we failed to understand in Vietnam--and, frankly, as much as Western liberal media liked to link Vietnam and Iraq, Afghanistan holds the analogy much better. We're dealing with a large insurgency by a huge portion of the country that genuinely opposes 1) the guy we've put in charge (in this case, Karzai), and 2) our presence. In Iraq, most of the serious problems were between Iraqi ethnic groups. Now, it does happen that the pro-Karzai factions are largely northern ethnic groups and the Taliban are largely Pashtuni, so the analogy is not perfect, but it's closer. Currently, Afghani Taliban are unwilling to negotiate as long as NATO sticks around. But if they see their lives made easier by successful peace deals, they may reconsider.

Like Iraq, making concessions for a lull in violence is likely to allow the government to retrench itself. Pro-government forces in Talibani areas will likely be more free to promote the government's agenda, and Afghani army/police will be able to at least step into Talibani areas to improve the government presence and administration in these areas. The many tens of billions poured into the country for economic development and education will be more effective. Hearts and Minds takes over, and it can work, especially with a mastermind like General Petraeus managing the operation.

Of course, there are lots of complaints about deterrence and appeasement. But one cannot actually beat every problem into submission. From the point of view of the Taliban, the US showed up to boot them out, and one cannot "deter" them into idly sitting around and letting the West run the show when they genuinely think the West is out to get them/Muslims/Afghanistan. What negotiation (in parallel with serious security operations, obviously) will show is that the US is willing to deal reasonably with the concerns of this large chunk of the country.