The Taliban Offensive: Red On Red
The Taliban had promised that their 2007 spring offensive would have the West's forces reeling backwards and out of Afghanistan. Someone's reeling, but it isn't NATO or Pakistan. The Taliban has a different fight on its hands -- more like a civil war:
When spring came and the snows began to melt in the mountains of Waziristan, Pakistani troops braced themselves for the seasonal upsurge in fighting along the porous border with Afghanistan.But, when it came, Pakistani soldiers were surprised, and relieved, to see the Taleban loyalists and the militants linked to al-Qaeda who seek sanctuary in this lawless region firing rockets and mortars not at them but at each other.
For the first time since 2001, the Waziri tribesmen who probably harboured Osama bin Laden and remain loyal to the Taleban are fighting against the foreign militants in their midst.
In the past two weeks an estimated 250 people have been killed in fighting between the tribesmen and militants, who are mainly from the former Soviet Central Asian state of Uzbekistan.
The spring thaw has apparently created a meltdown among the jihadis. The Waziri elders have issued a fatwa against the Uzbeks who have come to the Pashtun region. They have gone so far as to call out the lashkar, a religious militia; any man able to bear arms must join or have his home destroyed. They will have their hands full, as the Uzbeks have a reputation for ferocity that outstrips that of the Waziri Pashtuns.
No one could be happier than Pervez Musharraf. When he inked that deal with the tribal leaders in Waziristan, he received condemnation from his partners in the West. Musharraf argued that the deal would not compromise border security for Afghanistan, a claim that Hamid Karzai has hotly disputed, and for good reason.
Now Musharraf can point to this internecine warfare between the different al-Qaeda and Taliban factions as a benefit of the deal -- and he could be right. Leaving them alone together during a long winter has apparently unfrozen historical tensions between the tribal cultures of central Asia. They have crippled the Taliban's plans for major offensive operations against the Karzai government, and could destroy the two organizations in bloody infighting.
That won't bring peace to Afghanistan and Pakistan, of course. The two long-term results will either be that one side prevails against the other, or that they eventually work out some sort of peace between the factions in Waziristan. When either of those happen, the operations against Afghanistan's elected government will resume -- but the extra time will allow Karzai to strengthen himself and Afghanistan's security forces.
Posted by Ed Morrissey on April 11, 2007 4:42 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (1)
Comments (3)
Posted by rbj![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/nav-commenters.gif)
| April 11, 2007 8:07 AM
To quote Instapundit:
"More, please. And faster."
Let them kill each other. What Musharraf needs to do is to close the madrassas in Pakistan -- they create the radical Islamists, and start building secular schools for boys and girls. Pakistan isn't going to improve until it has a better educated population.
Posted by entropyincreases![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/nav-commenters.gif)
| April 11, 2007 2:27 PM
I think it is more complex than this post would indicate. Apparently, there is a schism, but the grand ol' Taliban is alive and well in Pakistan. So the Uzbek Taliban are out of favor, but not the regular Taliban. Try to research why the Uzbek Taliban are out of favor -- I think you might reconsider even further.
I look forward to a religious war being waged by "moderate" waziris as they pushed against radicals for a secular government. But as long as sharia is the goal of each side, the victory is an internal one and I cannot share the excitement. Pakistan is a scary place, nuclear, fairly radical, with a fairly radical military, and led by a dictator, who is pushing the country to greater radical extremes. The US does not really have a good position, unfortunately. At least not one I have heard articulated. There is not much we can do, so we do what we can on the border, with some special work within Pakistan.
Posted by Anthony (Los Angeles)![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/nav-commenters.gif)
| April 11, 2007 2:45 PM
I'm not so sure, Ed. Bill Roggio of The Fourth Rail thinks this is the visible sign of an internal Taliban power-struggle, not any evidence of the success of the Waziristan Accords, no matter what Musharraf claims: The Taliban's internecine war in Waziristan
http://billroggio.com/archives/2007/04/the_talibans_interne.php