LAHORE: The Obama administration’s March 26, 2009 decision to announce a $5 million head money reward for information on Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, is largely aimed at dissuading his 25000-plus private army to join hands with the Taliban militia of Afghanistan headed by Mulla Mohammad Omar who intends to launch a major spring offensive to knock out the Karzai government as well as the NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Well informed diplomatic circles in Islamabad say the Obama administration’s efforts to hunt down the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban commanders are actually motivated by recent US intelligence reports that the Taliban leaders have chalked out a three-pronged strategy for their coming spring offensive for Afghanistan – cutting off NATO supply lines running from Pakistan to Afghanistan, recruiting fresh volunteers and the creation of a strategic corridor running from Pakistan all the way to the Afghan capital Kabul. Since the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in October 2001, the sources say, this is the first time that the Taliban have come up with the idea of creating such a corridor which is hard to be materialized without the support of Pakistani Taliban led by Commander Baitullah Mehsud. The Americans believe the Taliban militia on the Pakistani side of the border has already cut off many NATO supply lines running from Pakistan by repeatedly attacking trucks carrying supplies for the NATO troops in Afghanistan and setting them on fire.
The diplomatic circles pointed out that the Taliban militants active in North and South Waziristan agencies, while acting under Mulla Mohammad Omar’s advice to stop attacking the Pakistani security forces and to join hands to fight out the Nato forces in Afghanistan, have already formed a new alliance – Shura Ittihadul Mujahideen (Council for Unity of Holy Warriors) – in the twin tribal agencies after burying the hatchet. Formed in the third week of February 2009, the alliance leadership has already declared the ameer of the Afghan Taliban Mullah Omar as their supreme leader and al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden as their role model.
The development came hardly a few days after the Pakistan government, unable to contain the threat from the Taliban militants in the Swat Valley despite an 18-month long military operation, signed a truce with the Taliban militants in Swat by pulling away its military and thus allowing Shariah to be implemented in the region. According to an announcement made by the Pakistani Taliban, the new alliance would comprise the groups led by central chief of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud and two pro-government key commanders — Maulvi Nazir of South Waziristan Agency and Hafiz Gul Bahadur of North Waziristan tribal region. The three reportedly met at an undisclosed location and decided to resolve their differences to foil the external forces designs for dividing the multiple Taliban groups based in Pakistan.
“As Jews, Christians and Hindu infidels stand united against the Muslims particularly Mujahideen under the leadership of United States, Mujahideen have set aside internal differences and have joined hands, the Taliban announcement said, adding: “In order to make happy the Muslims in general and Mujahideen in particular, the three Taliban groups have formed a 13-member advisory council to run the affairs of the new alliance which would be led by the three Taliban commanders on rotation basis”. The announcement said the new alliance has been directed by Mulla Omar to devise a new strategy to counter the invaders because the reinforcement of the US forces in Afghanistan is food for thought for all the forces fighting the occupation forces.
Under these circumstances, the diplomatic sources in Islamabad say, the Obama administration has decided to target Baitullah, the commander of the Pakistani Taliban, in a bid to stop his forces from joining hands with those of Mulla Omar and to jointly focus the energies of the militants on both sides of the border on fighting NATO and capturing Kabul. The sources pointed out that the $5 million FBI head money reward for Mehsud places him just below Mulla Omar in terms of his importance to the Taliban movement in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The reward for Mulla Omar is $10 million and that for Osama bin Laden and Dr Ayman Al Zawahiri $25 million each. As a matter of fact, Baitullah Mehsud had pledged himself to Mullah Omar in March 2005 in the presence of many leading Taliban commanders. The US State Department’s March 26, 2009 statement that announced the reward for his capture noted that Mehsud is regarded as a key Al-Qaeda facilitator in South Waziristan.
The US State Department’s statement pointed out that Mehsud had been accused of conducting cross-border attacks against US forces in Afghanistan and posing a clear threat to American citizens and interests in the region, especially in view of his reported intention to attack the United States. However, four days after the US administration announced head money for Baitullah, the Taliban commander broke his long silence on April 1, 2009 and claimed responsibility for a series of recent terrorist attacks inside Pakistan besides threatening that his men would soon attack Americans in their own country, not in Afghanistan. He said his men would soon teach a lesson to the Americans in Washington and the White House. Therefore, the Obama administration has deemed it fit to announce deployment of 17,000 additional US troops in Afghanistan by the end of May 2009, with additional deployments possibly numbering 30,000 by years’ end, as Washington is desperate to wrest control of large swathes of territory being controlled by the Taliban and the TTP.
Baitullah Mehsud, who was a nearly unknown militant almost four years ago, has grown in strength and stature in recent years and is said to command about 25,000 Taliban militants, a majority of whom belong to the Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan which is regarded as a safe haven for al-Qaeda and the Taliban linked militants. His rise in prominence reflects the growing Talibanization of Pakistan. The Pakistani authorities accuse Baitullah of receiving money from al-Qaeda and the Taliban to run the affairs of his parallel state in South Waziristan agency. He has been in the limelight for his well-known role in spearheading with the help of his suicide bombers a bloody insurgency against the Pakistani security forces, which are hunting fugitive al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in the trouble stricken tribal areas.
As a matter of fact, Baitullah Mehsud, who prefers being called a Pakistani Talib, is a veteran of the Afghan jehad who now virtually controls much of the South Waziristan Agency on the restive Pak-Afghan border where militancy has given birth to a new generation of leadership in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan by the US-led forces. Baitullah Mehsud, now 36, is a Pashtun coming from the Shabikhel sub-tribe of the Mehsud tribe who was born in Landidog, a small tribal village situated on the fringes of South Waziristan. The Mehsuds are one of the four sub-tribes of the Waziri tribe whose home spans the Pak-Afghan border.
Fifteen years ago, being a young madrassah student, Baitullah had been greatly inspired by Taliban ideology and frequently went to Afghanistan as a volunteer to join in the Taliban’s drive for enforcement of Islamic Shariah in the Waziristan region. Today, he himself controls a critical battle ground in the war on terror. Although Baitullah is the most powerful militant commander in the tribal areas, he remains a shadowy figure who was among those chosen few Pakistanis who made it to the Time’s 2009 list of the world’s most influential people. His mystery has been enhanced by his refusal to let himself be photographed in recent years, citing religious beliefs.
While his supporters say Baitullah has brought peace to the Waziristan region, his detractors argue that the peace came at a price – literally. Like a Mafia boss, they say, he and his lieutenants shake down the populace for protection money. Being Pakistan’s most influential Taliban leader, Baitullah has trained and lined up a whole new bunch of diehard commanders, all set and ready to take on the security forces in case of any major offensive. Intelligence reports from the tribal areas suggest that there is a large group of little known but diehard commanders who could launch attacks on security forces when they feel it is necessary for the survival of Taliban movement. However, many in the Pakistani establishment believe it was the peace-making policies of the Musharraf regime that actually led to the rise of Baitullah as a powerful Taliban leader to reckon with. To recall, Baitullah is the same person with whom the Pakistan Army had signed a peace agreement on February 7, 2005 despite his being a wanted terrorist even at that time.
The pressure to negotiate with Mehsud instead of proceeding against him came from the then provincial government of the North Western Frontier Province, a coalition of right-wing religious parties (Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal) which had been sympathetic to the Taliban and opposed to the presence of the US troops in Afghanistan. Musharraf, whose rule was being challenged by the opposition at that time, both as the president as well as the army chief, agreed to hold peace talks with Taliban fighters in the Waziristan region and sign a peace agreement with them in exchange for the support of the MMA in the Parliament to pass the 17th Constitutional Amendment that allowed him to continue as a president in military uniform for next three years.
Subsequently, about 1,000 people, including the locals as well as the government and the military officials, including then Corps Commander Peshawar Lt Gen Safdar Hussain, attended the signing ceremony of the peace agreement near the Sararogha Fort some 80 kilometers from the town of Wana in South Waziristan. The ceremony, held on February 8, 2005, ended with the Corps Commander declaring Baitullah a soldier of peace, and the militants raising slogans of Allah-o-Akbar (God is great) and Death to America.
As part of the Sararogha peace deal, Baitullah had pledged not to provide any assistance to al-Qaeda and Taliban militants and not to launch operations against the security forces. He also gave his word that his tribe would not protect Commander Abdullah Mehsud (a former Guantanamo Bay inmate and an anti-US rebel commander who was wanted by the authorities and eventually killed on July 24, 2007 at his Zhob hideout in Baluchistan). Mehsud was offered US$20 million for his cooperation in the ceasefire. He reportedly declined the offer and told the Pakistani authorities that they should use the pay-out to compensate families who had suffered during the military operation. As the deal between the military and the militants gave Baitullah a free hand to recruit and motivate more youngsters, the strength of his private army in South Waziristan went up from around 1000 to about 20,000 within next few months, enabling him to virtually establish an independent zone in parts of the South Waziristan, now widely believed to be a sanctuary for al-Qaeda and the Taliban.
Mehsud’s military might further multiplied on December 12, 2007 when a shura or council of 40 senior militant leaders commanding an army of 25,000 gathered in Peshawar and decided to unite under a single banner, called the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. The consolidation of the disparate ‘local Taliban’ movement was seen as a logical step in Pakistani Taliban’s ongoing insurgency campaign in northwestern Pakistan. Before that, the Pakistani Taliban, while allied with al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, had been operating as local groups. However, the creation of a unified Taliban movement on the Pakistani side of Pak-Afghan border allowed them to better coordinate both military and political operations with the Pakistani as well as with the Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda.
In his first ever television interview conducted by Al Jazeera at an unknown location and aired on January 28, 2008, Baitullah said: “The main objective of the coalition of militants is waging a defensive jehad. The Pakistan army is deploying its soldiers under orders from Bush. The army is bombarding our houses and fighting with us. Therefore, we have formed a coalition to guarantee the safety of civilians and this war which the army launched in the tribal areas is an American war. During a 25-minute sit-down with Al Jazeera correspondent Ahmed Zaidan, he declared: “Our main aim is to finish Britain and United States and to crush the pride of the non-Muslims. We pray to God to give us the ability to destroy the White House, New York and London. And we have trust in God. Very soon, we will be witnessing jehad’s miracles”.
A few months later, on May 24, 2008, addressing a press conference, Mehsud admitted for the first time that he was sending fighters to battle the US troops in Afghanistan. Mehsud said the holy war would continue until the US forces are made to withdraw from Afghanistan. “Yes, we are helping the Taliban in the jehad against America. We send our people to fight against America, and God willing, we will evict the Americans from Afghanistan the same way the Russian were driven out from there” he said. Mehsud denied that militants were sheltering al-Qaeda chief Osama, but said he would like to meet him. “If Osama needs protection in our areas, we will feel proud to shelter him”, he responded to a query. Resultantly, Baitullah is a marked man today, with both the American and Pakistani security and intelligence agencies trying to hunt him down.
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