(7)Swat Taliban leader 'alive, healthy and has never been wounded' - spokesman
|
| Mullah Qari Fazlullah. |
The chief spokesman for the Swat Taliban claimed that Mullah Qari Fazlullah is alive and said that the Taliban are prepared to retake Swat once the winter settles in. Meanwhile, the Taliban confirmed that Fazlullah's deputy was killed during fighting last year.
"Taliban chief Fazlullah is alive, healthy and has never been wounded," Muslim Khan told AFP.
Khan said the Swat Taliban leadership is intact and has gone underground to avoid the military operation.
"All of the Taliban leadership in Swat are alive and are in hiding with a strategy," Khan continued, echoing statements made last week by Maulvi Omar, the chief spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud's Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan.
"We will continue our jihad until the enforcement of Islamic sharia," Khan said. "Army artillery and tanks cannot prevent us from achieving our objective." Khan said the Taliban will retake Swat once the winter sets in and the routes become difficult for the military to use.
Last weekend, Fazlullah was heard on the radio for the first time after months of silence. Fazlullah threatened to punish Swat tribesmen who aided the military and government during the Swat offensive.
Fazlullah's broadcasts are infamous for the anti-government screeds and the radical interpretations of Islam. He is nicknamed "Mullah FM" and "Radio Mullah" for pioneering the use of illegal radio broadcasts to promote his radical agenda.
The statements from Omar and Khan, and Fazlullah's radio broadcast, put a dent in the military's claim that Fazlullah was gravely wounded during fighting near his home town. The military said it obtained the information using signals intercepts.
Shah Doran confirmed killed
At least one senior Swat Taliban leader has been killed during the military offensive to clear the Taliban from Swat and the neighboring districts of Dir and Buner at the end of April.
In June, the Pakistani military said Shah Doran was killed during fighting in the Kabal region in Swat. Earlier this week, the Taliban confirmed Doran's death, according to a report in AKI. Nearly two months ago, at the end of May, the Pakistani government had issued a $185,000 bounty for the capture of Doran.
Doran was Fazlullah's deputy and was notorious for preaching radical, anti-government sermons on the Taliban's radio programs. He also served as the senior military commander in Swat.
Doran is the only Taliban commander on the government's wanted list to have been killed or captured. Fazlullah has a $616,500 bounty, while Muslim Khan and Ibn Amim, like Doran, have $185,000 bounties on their heads. Seventeen other Taliban commanders from Swat who have had bounties issued for their capture are still on the loose.
Since Doran's death, Ibn Amim has been put in charge of the Taliban's forces in Swat. Ibn Amin is the leader of the Tora Bora Brigade, one of the six known brigades in al Qaeda's paramilitary Shadow Army. The Tora Bora Brigade has an estimated 1,500 fighters and participated in the invasion of neighboring Buner.
The Swat Taliban are estimated to have between 5,000 and 7,000 fighters in their ranks. The military claimed to have killed nearly 1,800 in Swat and neighboring Buner and Dir, while taking more than 160 casualties of its own. US intelligence officials have said the Pakistani estimates of enemy casualties are highly exaggerated and include civilians caught in the crossfire.
Background on the Malakand Accord and fighting in Swat
The fighting in Swat, Dir, Buner, and Shangla broke out earlier this year after a peace agreement with the Taliban failed. The agreement, known as the Malakand Accord, placed the Malakand Division and the district of Kohistan under the control of the Taliban. The Malakand Division comprises the districts of Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir, and Chitral. Together with the neighboring Kohistan district, the Malakand Division encompasses nearly one-third of the Northwest Frontier Province.
The government signed the Malakand Accord with Taliban front man Sufi Mohammed, Fazlullah's father-in-law, on Feb. 16 after two years of fighting that had put the Taliban in control of the district. During those two years, the military was defeated three separate times while attempting to wrest control from the Taliban. Each defeat put the Taliban in greater control of the district.
The peace agreement called for the end of military operations in Swat, the end of Taliban operations, and the imposition of sharia, or Islamic law, in the Malakand Division.
But the Taliban violated the agreement immediately after signing it, and proceeded to attack security forces and conduct armed patrols. The military remained silent while the government approved the Taliban's demand for sharia throughout Malakand.
The government ordered a military offensive in Dir and Buner after enormous pressure from the US and other Western governments to stem the Taliban tide pushing toward central Pakistan. The Taliban advanced from Swat into Buner in early April and took over the district in eight days. The move into Buner has put the Taliban within 60 miles of Islamabad and close to several nuclear facilities and the vital Tarbela Dam. The Taliban also have moved into Mansehra and established bases and a training camp in the region.
Pakistani government and military officials have dismissed the Taliban threat to Islamabad and the country's nuclear facilities, but at the end of April, the local Islamabad government ordered troops to deploy in the Margala hills just north of the city to block a Taliban advance, while the Haripur government beefed up security at the Tarbela Dam.
READER COMMENTS: "Swat Taliban leader 'alive, healthy and has never been wounded' - spokesman"
Posted by Neo at July 24, 2009 1:11 AM ET:
I'd give this a mixed response, quite honestly. We all agree that the Taliban will make an attempt to retake SWAT, or at least harass the Pakistani Army in some major way. That has been a given since the Taliban can filter in from adjacent areas. Muslim Khan sets this winter as a timeframe for ramping up insurgent activity in the area. Actually, that is quit a while, considering the last time the Taliban moved to retake SWAT it took a few months. More than a month ago the Taliban spoke on this they indicated that they expected to regroup in about five weeks. It's already been more than five weeks since.
Before we get too much into Fazlullah's recovery, we need to ask solid questions about what did happen during the SWAT offensive and what are their current capabilities. The leadership of the Swat Taliban are intact for the most part, but I do wonder how things went for the rank and file. First, I don't think the Taliban really expected a real military campaign against them. I think they expected the usual half hearted "song and dance routine" from the Pakistani army, accompanied with the usual hollow declarations of victory and token occupation of a few areas. Given a real fight, it looks like the Taliban intended to give some stiff resistance and melt into the countryside. Problem was the stiff resistance only materialized in a few places behind a few core Taliban troops. The rest immediately melted away. What was left couldn't hold off the Pakistani army.
This brings up a few questions. Does the Taliban even know where its low level fighters are? No one has really explored the possibility that much of the support that the Taliban was getting in SWAT was soft, and that a good portion of their low level people may have just walked, given an opportunity. I don't know the answer to that, but the Taliban does seem to have some trouble regrouping. Given the swiftness that the Taliban originally took the area, and the fact that they were unopposed, I would not be entirely surprised if their support is soft. In the 2004 to 2008 timeframe the Taliban was rolling along with victory after victory, in a quick expansion. The old adage "If you see a parade get in front of it" might be applied. For a while there, the Taliban really did look like it had a date with destiny. Many joined up expecting quick victory. Not so!
Much is made of projected Taliban numbers, but how many of these men are really prepare to fight protracted gorilla warfare against fellow Muslims. There is a sizable solid core of Taliban fighters that are dedicated and fairly well trained. That core can be depended on, but much of the rest seem to be seasonal fighters. In fact many of them seem to spend the bulk of their time trying to eke out a living along the margins of Pakistan's cities. That situation can cut both ways. It presents a potentially volatile situation for the government where an outbreak of chaos within Pakistan's cities is very possible. On the other side though, if Pashtoon's become increasingly disaffected with the Taliban they may stick with whatever livelyhood they have and not show up for fighting.
The biggest problem I see now is that the Pakistani Army seems to have become complacent once again now that Islamabad is no longer under immediate threat. I'm not totally critical of their current approach. They have a number of things on their plate. There is the SWAT refugee problem to make some headway on, before many more refugees are added. They need to keep the Taliban in Waziristan busy enough that they aren't able to mount significant counterattacks and/or transfer of resources outside their immediate region. The Pakistani Army must not overexpose itself in Waziristan, but at the same time mustn't become too static. The current punitive air strikes will only work for a few more weeks and must be soon accompanied by further probing and pressure by the Pakistani Army in Waziristan and elsewhere. Otherwise the Taliban regains the initiative.
As for Mullah Fazlullah, he can be counted on to shoot his mouth off. (At least until someone shoots his mouth off for him) We will see if the rest of SWAT Taliban recover as fast as the Mullah and his mouthpiece. Only time will tell.
Posted by Raven at July 24, 2009 8:42 AM ET:
Neo:
Thanks for the excellent analysis. It's true that CI's will take years and Pak Army's immediate threat to core of the country, Islamabad/Punjab, is lessened, we will see round 2 of this in few years!.
Posted by MZBH at July 24, 2009 10:42 AM ET:
Excellent analysis Neo.
Complacency or room to breathe and close out existing fronts, we'll find out soon enough I suppose.
Posted by ramsis at July 24, 2009 4:57 PM ET:
Neo:
Good analysis! Is the Taliban plan to wait until winter sets in a shift in strategy? Usually it seemed the Taliban spent winters planning for a spring offensive. Also how do guage the ability of Swat tribesmen to resist the Taliban should they find themselves confronted this winter.
Posted by Neo at July 25, 2009 12:22 AM ET:
"Is the Taliban plan to wait until winter sets in a shift in strategy?"
That was the statement according to Muslim Khan, it seems. It doesn't sound like a fixed timeframe, rather I took it as general working plan and timetable. It sounds like the Taliban is thinking out its next move. Actually, It's a nice nugget of information. Muslim Khan may have blurted out more information about the status of the Swat Taliban than he needed to. It does seem to fit what has happened in Swat. Reading the news released over the last couple months, I've gradually been getting the impression that things did not go well for the Taliban in Swat. That's not what I initially expected, but it looks like things broke down for the Swat Taliban. Frankly, I openly question whether they had any real contingency planning or any fixed plan for where to go and how to regroup should they need to. I don't think they planned on getting their butts kicked.
Before going any further, I must make it clear that I'm not generalizing what happened in Swat to any other aspect of what is going on in Western Pakistan. Waziristan is a much harder place to make any headway in. On the original subject though, Muslim Khan's statement was confirmation of what I had suspected. I don't think it is misinformation either. Someone with access to the Muslim Khan's original statement and context could tell a lot better.
I don't want to draw too many conclusions, but I think we should weight the Talibans actions as more informative than their propaganda releases. So far, I still see the Taliban as in a very reactive posture after this springs army offensives. Since anticipated large scale operations around Waziristan seem to be limited in scope, I think it is only a mater of time before the Taliban regains the initiative.
Posted by yash at July 26, 2009 9:44 AM ET:
Taliban are just biding their time. Have you ever seen an insurjency being defeated by artillery shells ? This Pak action is just to extract money from US.
Posted by ArneFufkin at July 27, 2009 1:20 PM ET:
As much as I appreciate the inimitable reports from Bill and his colleagues, I appreciate the thoughtful and insightful contributions of posters like Neo, Render and others here equally. This is a must-read site for anyone who cares about events in this crucial and perilous region: Which should number all who value liberty, security and prosperity.