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WEEKLY
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Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Fighting the Taliban in their heartlands – the Waziristan agencies – is going to be a very different matter to fighting them in Swat or Buner. They have been the de-facto rulers of the Waziristan agencies for many years. They will have created layered defensive positions, tunnel systems, planted mines and IEDs and have the advantage of knowing the terrain like the backs of their hands. They are well-armed, well-supplied and if events of the last few days are any indicator, well-able to mount a company-size ambush that has cost our armed forces dear. As many as 22 of our soldiers were killed in two large incidents in the Waziristans over a single twenty-four hour period, and 35 injured. Taliban sources claim the number of dead to be 60. As many as 150 militants linked to Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur ambushed a military convoy in Madakhel area of North Waziristan Agency on Sunday. From the sketchy reports that are emerging of the battle it would seem that fighting was at very close quarters, and that the Taliban made off with weapons and equipment from our slain soldiers. The ambush took place on a stretch of road where there was an almost identical engagement in 2007, in which we lost 16 soldiers. Gul Bahadur was supposedly an ally of the government and had signed a peace accord with it on February 17, 2008, but has had an about-face.
We can expect more of the same in coming days and weeks as the offensive develops and moves deeper into Taliban territory. This is going to be no 'sweeping up' of a few raggle-taggle 'remnants'; this is going to be a hard-fought bitter battle against a force which is no less able, and perhaps better equipped, than our own. Set against the military 'ground realities' are the battles being fought from the safety of their drawing rooms and debating chambers by our politicians. Whilst we understand that politicians and soldiers have different ways of saying things, they are both speaking to the same audience – the general public. The military are guarded in what they say, and are not heard to speak of an imminent end to the fighting anywhere on the several fronts they are now engaged. By contrast, the prime minister said last Sunday that the war against anti-state elements had entered its final phase and the military operation would be completed 'soon'. 'Soon' is a very elastic concept. The general public on hearing 'soon' may reasonably think 'days and weeks' – whereas the reality is that the fight we are now engaged in is more likely to last many months, perhaps years, and in real terms may never – ever – have a defined ending. Terrorism is going to continue in Pakistan – even if we 'win' the war in the Waziristans - and elsewhere in the world as there always be those who wish to challenge the writ of the state by violent means. Somewhere a balance has to be found between the reality of the war that the military fights daily and the necessary (but not always reality-linked) optimism in respect of the conflict that infuses political statements. Failing to find the balance merely serves to confuse and mislead those on whose behalf the war is being fought.
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ISSN 1563-9479 
