Change is afoot in Pakistan. Evidence was on display in early February, with the capture of the Afghan Taliban’s number two commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in a joint operation by the CIA and Pakistani intelligence. The arrest of Baradar, who had been operating with relative impunity in Pakistan for years, was met with elation in Washington, where officials have been fruitlessly pressing the Pakistanis to crack down on the Afghan Taliban since 2001.
Yet, Baradar was only the first domino to fall. In the intervening weeks, as many as 15 high-value Taliban officials have been killed or captured, including up to half of the Afghan Taliban leadership council, three Arab al Qaeda agents, and Mohammed Haqqani, son of the region’s most notorious Taliban-linked warlord. The Afghan Taliban has been dealt its heaviest blow since the group’s eviction from Afghanistan in 2001, while the implications of Pakistan’s about-face could shape Afghanistan’s future far more than the outcome of President Obama’s 18-month troop surge in Afghanistan.
The motivation behind Pakistan’s apparent turn against its former Afghan allies remains the source of heavy speculation. What is certain, however, is that Pakistan’s actions cannot be understood outside the context of its strategic evolution over the past year.
A big fish
Several high-value militants have been targeted since Pakistan captured Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi, but the subsequent arrests should not overshadow the importance of the first catch. No Taliban commander of comparable rank has ever been captured alive. Baradar, the Taliban’s strategic planner and military commander for southern Afghanistan, had in many ways supplanted isolated Taliban supremo Mullah Omar in the day-to-day management of the Taliban franchise.
A former deputy defense minister in the Taliban government and a veteran of the Afghan-Soviet war, Baradar’s knowledge of Taliban personnel, strategies, and alliances is unparalleled and he now appears to be talking. Indeed, the arrests of Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, head of military operations and former Guantanamo inmate; Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammed, the shadow governors of Kunduz and Baghlan provinces; Maulvi Abdul Kabir, former shadow governor of Nangarhar; and Mullah Ramazan and Mullah Shikh, both Taliban commanders for Herat province, point to the potential treasure trove of intelligence mined by Baradar’s arrest.
It was two weeks before Pakistan allowed the CIA limited access to Baradar and U.S. officials remain “unsatisfied” with the process. They’ve pressed Islamabad to transfer Baradar to Afghanistan, and the U.S.-run Bagram air base in particular. However, just as soon as Islamabad assured Afghan officials that Baradar would be handed over, the Lahore High Court in Pakistan ruled that the detainee and four of his associates could not be extradited.
Baradar’s capture also confirms that at least some Afghan Taliban leaders, fearing America’s increasingly effective drone campaign of targeted killings, have fled their longtime shelter in Quetta, Baluchistan for Karachi, a teeming port city in Sindh province with a sizable Pashtun population. Drone strikes have thus far been restricted to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, but recent reporting suggests the CIA has become directly involved in street-level kill-capture operations with Pakistani intelligence, including in Baluchistan.
And as early as last fall, reports surfaced that Pakistan’s spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), helped transfer Mullah Omar to Karachi to inaugurate a new leadership council. The city has long been a hub for Taliban fundraising and criminal activities, despite being run by the thuggish but fiercely anti-Taliban Muttahida Quami Movement.
A change of heart
So why did Pakistan decide to move against Baradar and other Afghan Taliban leaders now? When Pakistan turned decisively against the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) last spring, optimism was widespread that Islamabad would finally turn on its old Afghan Taliban allies as well. That optimisim was misplaced. As late as January of this year, Pakistani officials were heard rebuffing U.S. calls to crack down on the Afghan Taliban and its allies in the Haqqani network.
As for the Quetta Shura or leadership council to which Baradar belonged, Pakistan adamantly denied its existence up until last December, when Pakistan’s Defense Minister abruptly ended the ruse and admitted the Quetta Shura was active but “damaged.” It seemed Islamabad was fixed on retaining its top proxy in Afghanistan in anticipation of the US’ eventual withdrawal.
Thus, Pakistan’s change of heart this February took many by surprise. A popular theory says Islamabad is trying to forestall efforts by the US and Afghanistan to negotiate a settlement with the Afghan Taliban. Baradar has been recognized as a relative pragmatist within the organization, and recent reporting suggests US and Afghan officials were engaged in direct outreach to Baradar’s coterie before his capture. Wary of being sidelined, Islamabad may have believed that by nabbing a key interlocutor, it could dictate the terms of negotiations, win the praise of the United States, and heavily influence the future composition of the Afghan government.
These elements likely underpin the motives of more than a few key players in Islamabad. However, a less cynical interpretation weighs indications that Pakistan’s divorce with the Afghan Taliban is more genuine. The seeds of a deep-rooted philosophical evolution were planted back in the spring of 2009. The Pakistani Taliban had been waging a bloody assault against the Pakistani state since its emergence 2007; by spring of ’09 it was pushing from its sanctuary in the tribal areas to the civilized regions of Northwest Frontier Province, namely the Swat valley.
Islamabad first responded with ambivalence, as it had to previous TTP advances. In fact, the National Assembly voted unanimously to implement “Islamic Law” in Swat, essentially ceding the group the strategic valley in exchange for a “truce.” Civilian and military leaders downplayed the threat publicly and deflected anger with vague references to “external enemies of the state.” Media framed the violence as part of “America’s war” or simply blamed the American and Indian spy agencies for the ongoing suicide bombings. According to one popular account the Taliban were on the CIA’s payroll.
Then it happened. In May of 2009 the military was suddenly roused to action and in a short time evicted the Taliban from Swat. By fall it was pushing deep into the jihadist safe haven in South Waziristan along the ungoverned Af-Pak border, an operation Washington had been demanding for years, to no avail. Suddenly Pakistan was fighting back. It was here, and not the February capture of Mullah Baradar, where the most critical shift took root.
Two relatively minor developments appear to have prompted this sea change. First, the TTP got greedy. Shortly after cementing their control over Swat, only 60 miles from the capital, the group began pushing into the neighboring district of Buner, one step closer to Islamabad. This seems to have driven home to Pakistani officials the unrelenting nature of their enemy. The TTP also began specifically targeting military and intelligence installations in Rawalpindi and Lahore, even destroying the ISI’s headquarters in Peshawar last November.
This personalized the battle against the TTP for Pakistan’s security services; a critical evolution for an institution whose determination to fight former allies, fellow tribesman, and potential future assets was shaky, at best.
Second, and more important, footage emerged from Swat in April 2009 of a Taliban foot-soldier flogging his 17-year-old sister 37 times for being out in public without her husband. The Pakistani public was mortified and public perceptions of the Taliban began to shift dramatically. It is bizarre that this singular heinous act had such a profound effect on the Pakistani public, given that the Taliban have been beheading, incinerating, and maiming women and children for years in Pakistan. That the country’s populace was unaffected by such carnage, yet so moved by the video, is a testament to how corrupt the public discourse in Pakistan had become.
As the Swat Valley operation unfolded and successes mounted, the offensive became increasingly popular. The language of Pakistan’s military and civilian leaders began to change. Gone were the references to “external threats” while “terrorists” and “extremists” entered the leadership’s vocabulary. Suddenly, the National Assembly was voting unanimously to fight the “war on terror.” The media followed suit and the national dialogue underwent a significant transformation. Though commentators still peddle misinformation and conspiracy, it is no longer taboo for them to attribute blame to the Taliban for their gruesome attacks.
Public opinion polls out of Pakistan over the past year show significant turns against the Taliban and their ideology. The significance of this shift cannot be underestimated: Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Kiyani recently submitted that “public opinion, media support, army’s capability [sic] and resolve are fundamental to our war.”
In the meantime, the Obama administration began a comprehensive diplomatic push to translate Islamabad’s new resolve against the TTP into a turn against the Afghan Taliban. Over the past 12 months, Pakistan has received constant stream of top-ranking American civilian and military leaders. Consequently, the personal bonds between the US and Pakistani military leaders have grown as strong as they’ve beeen in years. Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen has been the Pakistani military’s most ardent defender, deflecting accusations that the security establishment there plays a “double game.”
This exhaustive effort appeared to pay off on February 2nd. That day witnessed a rare press conference by Pakistan’s all-powerful Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General Kiyani. On the heels of a visit by US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, the traditionally reticent Kiyani signaled a shift in Pakistan’s strategic outlook and offered an unusual show of support for Afghanistan. (The strained relations between Kabul and Islamabad since 2001 have undermined U.S. efforts in Afghanistan from day one.)
Kiyani verbally committed to a break with the policies of the past, when Pakistan used the Afghan Taliban to control its neighbor as a source of “strategic depth” in a potential war with India. “If we have a peaceful, stable and friendly Afghanistan, automatically we will have our strategic depth because our western border will be secure, and we will not be looking at two fronts.”
Embedded in Kiyani’s remarks lay another critical, yet often overlooked dynamic in Pakistan’s regional equation: its fear of a strong Afghanistan. Pakistan’s interest in its neighbor lies far beyond “strategic depth” via India: a strong government in Kabul could challenge the artificially drawn Durand Line that separates them or make a bid for the loyalty of Pakistan’s restive Pashtun population, whose bonds to the Pakistani state are frayed.
This underlines Kiyani’s reference to Afghanistan as another “front” that has to be watched and signals that Pakistan’s fears over a strong and stable Afghan government may be subsiding. Kiyani finished, “We have opened all doors… It’s a win-win for Afghanistan, [the U.S.-led Coalition], and Pakistan.”
Conclusion
The Obama administration is enthralled with Pakistan’s turnaround. Last year, Congress approved a landmark five-year $7.5 billion economic assistance package to Pakistan (including $50 million for a “comprehensive communications strategy,” $335 million for education, $150 million for health, $55 million for infrastructure, and $130 million for counter-narcotics). In recent weeks, Defense Secretary Robert Gates approved Pakistan’s long-standing request for unmanned aerial drones of its own, pledging a dozen to Islamabad, albeit of the unarmed variety.
However, the risk exists on the side of Washington being too approbative, not the opposite. The US heaped praise and money on Pakistan when it was actively supporting anti-Coalition insurgents and, by the US government’s own account, squandering billions in aid. Imagine the impulse if Pakistan begins to act like a true ally.
Such uncritical support would be misguided. Despite all its progress, Pakistan is now doing what is minimally acceptable. Islamabad turned against the TTP in 2009 because the group was besieging the Pakistani state and cutting down its citizens. Islamabad is now beginning to turn against the Afghan Taliban; however, done eight years ago, they could have saved tens of thousands of American, Afghan, and Pakistani lives, and hundreds of billions of dollars.
Moreover, Pakistan has yet to move decisively against the powerful Haqqani network, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e-Islami, or the handful of Taliban commanders in North Waziristan with whom it struck a deal last fall, to say nothing of the jihadist network it has cultivated to target India. While recognizing its achievements, the US must maintain pressure on Islamabad until jihadists of all stripes are no long welcome in Pakistan.
It is of critical importance for the US to foster the shift underway in Pakistan’s strategic thinking. Ultimately, Pakistan sponsored the Taliban because it fears a strong Afghanistan and it fears Indian influence there. Managing the India dynamic will be tricky.
To an extent, Pakistan should be expected to eclipse India’s influence in Afghanistan; it does now and has throughout its history. However, the Obama administration must resist the impulse to sideline New Delhi. The U.S.-Indian alliance already suffers from neglect under the Obama administration. But more important than that, Pakistan’s India fears are wildly overblown, bordering on paranoia. India’s presence in Afghanistan has been almost exclusively civilian, as well as benign, peaceful, and popular.
In fact, Afghans view India more favorably than any other country, by a wide margin, and India has won international praise for the billions it has invested in Afghanistan’s infrastructure. Bottom line: New Delhi could be made to live with Pakistani influence in Afghanistan, so long as the US was prepared to ensure that influence did not come at India’s detriment.
Pakistan’s troubled relationship with Afghanistan must undergo changes as well. Islamabad must overcome its suspicions of a strong, democratic government in Kabul and the US can help by ensuring Kabul has no intentions of challenging Pakistan on the Durand Line or the Pashtun question.
Washington will face a difficult test balancing Pakistan’s desire for “influence” in Afghanistan with the US' evolving commitment to democratic norms there and the Afghan aversion to Pakistani domination. But balance these priorities it must, if the US has any hopes of salvaging the “good war” or dragging Pakistan out of a cycle of self-destruction
Jeff M Smith is with the American Foreign Policy Council in Washington D.C., USA