Taliban’s cross-border attacks aim to create Pakistani-Afghan tension

By Zia Ur Rehman
For CentralAsiaOnline.com
2011-08-01

KARACHI – Pakistani and Afghan Taliban members have teamed up to attack both countries’ border areas, killing innocent residents and aiming to disrupt security co-operation between Islamabad and Kabul, security analysts say.

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Security forces patrol the rugged terrain on the Pakistani-Afghan border along Bins Shahi in Upper Dir July 20, after cross-border militant attacks in various parts of Upper and Lower Dir and in the Bajaur tribal areas of Pakistan. [Zahir Shah

More than a dozen cross-border terrorist incursions over the past four months in Pakistan’s border region have taken place, killing hundreds of civilians and security personnel, media reported.

Most of the attacks took place in the Dir region, from where Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants, defeated by a military operation in Malakand Division, fled to Afghanistan. Other incursions have occurred in Bajaur Agency, Mohmand Agency and South Waziristan Agency.

Media reports from Afghanistan also suggest that the cross-border incursions run both ways, especially in the remote region of eastern Afghanistan. Afghan authorities, including the governors of Kunar and Nuristan, complain regularly about militant incursions from border areas.

The largest attack took place in Kamdish District of Nuristan July 5, where hundreds of militants, most of them alleged to be Pakistanis, crossed the border from an area near Dir, killing scores of people, Pajhwok Afghan News reported.

“Pakistani militant groups and their leaders including Maulana Fazlullah, Faqeer Muhammad, Abdul Wali and Hakeemullah, all have found sanctuaries in bordering region from where they are now conducting cross-border attacks into Pakistani territory,” Pakistani military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said in a recent interview.

A joint commission has been formed in Peshawar that will decide how to deal with the cross-border violence and the militants, he said.

Pakistan has 147,000 troops deployed at 900 posts along the border who have repelled numerous attacks, killing dozens of militants, Abbas said.

A disruptive new Taliban strategy

The violence on both sides of the border is a new Taliban strategy intended to disrupt the relationship between the two countries and create mistrust at the highest levels, Khadim Hussain, a Peshawar-based security analyst, told Central Asia Online.

Though the security forces of both countries have begun operations to repel further attacks, the Islamabad and Kabul governments should deal collectively with the issue of cross-border militancy, Hussain added.

“It is now imperative to establish a co-ordination mechanism among Pakistan, Afghanistan and (international ) forces in Afghanistan with a view to developing a joint strategy to push back the present cross-border terrorism, as an alliance among the leaders of al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban and other militant organisations has been formed,” he said.

“It could be an al-Qaeda or TTP strategy to sabotage the growing trust between Afghanistan and Pakistan and co-operation,” said Afghan journalist Abbas Daiyar.

Al-Qaeda wants to destroy the friendly relationship between Islamabad and Kabul by creating war hysteria and an atmosphere of mutual distrust, Daiyar told Central Asia Online.

Fazlullah and other TTP leaders are trying to regain a foothold in Malakand Division and tribal areas but will not succeed, said Brig. (ret.) Shoukat Qadir, a security expert based in Islamabad.

Security forces have shattered the basic network of the TTP in Swat, Bajaur and other tribal areas during military operations, forcing them to flee to Afghanistan, Qadir told Central Asia Online.

Residents of the border regions have formed peace committees to protect their areas and help push back militants, Haji Talimand Khan, an elder of Nustrat Darra in Upper Dir, said.

“Taliban militants recently released a graphic video showing (them) barbarously executing 18 innocent policemen, which has created much hatred … among the people of Malakand,” he said. All of the policemen were from Upper Dir and captured in a June 1 cross-border ambush in the Shaltalu area.

“The Taliban are enemies of the Pashtun people, and they have nothing to do with Islam,” Khan said.

Security forces have sealed the Pakistani-Afghan border in Malakand Division to stop militant attacks and cross-border infiltration, said Dr. Fakhr-e-Alam, commissioner of Malakand Division.

“Any militant infiltration of Pakistani territory will be considered a violation of international borders and will be dealt with accordingly,” he said.

From across the border

The border areas of Dir and Bajaur have emerged as a new hub of militancy in Pakistan, and stand to threaten peace efforts. 

http://www.himalmag.com/component/content/article/4515-from-across-the-border.html

Himal SouthAsian, Web Exclusive

28 June 2011

By Zia Ur Rehman

In the past two months, Pakistan’s Bajaur Agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), along with Dir district in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, saw three cross-border incursions, allegedly carried out by Pakistani militants with help from Afghan allies. These attacks, which took place despite several army operations in Pakistan and the NATO presence across the border in Afghanistan, demonstrated the continued strength of militants along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border area. The situation also prompted discussion on cross-border militant movement during the recent meeting of the high-level Afghanistan-Pakistan joint commission in Islamabad.

 

 

The most recent cross-border attack occurred on 16 June, when more than 200 militants crossed the border and raided the houses of local anti-Taliban militia in the Mamond area of Bajaur, killing around nine civilians. Casualties rose to 15 militants and 12 security personnel during subsequent clashes between the Pakistani security forces and the militants. Earlier, on 1 June, a three-day clash resulted in the deaths of dozens of people in Barawal, in Upper Dir, after hundreds of heavily armed militants targeted a poorly defended security post in Shaltalu. Likewise, on 22 April, a border security post in Lower Dir came under attack by militants, resulting in the death of more than 16 security personnel. Residents of Barawal are now requesting the government not to install additional security posts in their areas, for fear of inciting new attacks.

While the Pakistan government blames the Afghan Taliban for this violence, local tribal elders and security experts believe otherwise.

According to the latter, these attacks have probably been carried out by Pakistani militants, especially accomplices of Maulana Fazlullah, head of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Swat, with help from Afghan militants. Reportedly, following the 2009 military operation in Swat, Fazlullah and his commanders fled to nearby provinces in Afghanistan, and some believe that these exiled forces have now been returning and targeting their rivals, including the security forces. The TTP claimed responsibility for the 1 June attacks in Dir, thus seeming corroborate this assertion. Omar Hassan Ahrabi, a spokesperson for the TTP in Malakand Division, said that the group had carried out the attacks together ‘with [its] Afghan allies’, adding that the attackers had managed to seize Pakistani anti-aircraft weapons before returning safely to hideouts in Afghanistan.

Large-scale

Apart from the possibility of Pakistani militants regrouping in Malakand and Bajaur, many security observers suggest that these groups are adopting a new strategy of large-scale attacks against government and security forces. Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, a TTP leader in Bajaur previously thought dead, recently stated that the TTP, in collaboration with al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, plans to target state and security agencies. While the reappearance of Faqir Muhammad is already a major blow to ongoing peace efforts in insurgency-affected areas, such large-scale attacks will make the attempt at debilitating the group even harder.

In the aftermath of the Osama bin Laden operation in Abbottabad, the group has stepped up suicide bombings, attacks on paramilitary cadets, a naval base and a US consulate convoy. This has challenged government assertions that army operations against the militants have succeeded. Indeed, instead of weakening the militants, the army operations seem to have merely translocated the hub of militancy from tribal areas to provincial areas such as Dir. Local people in Upper Dir claim that the militants have begun roaming on their hills. And while nine schools in the area have been reportedly destroyed by the militants, others have remained closed after receiving threatening letters from the TTP. Beginning this year, the TTP militants have also started targeting ‘pro-government’ elders and police personnel – sending not only shockwaves among locals of Dir, but also belying the military’s claims of clearing the area of the militants.

The latest attacks on civilians seem to be the militants’ way of deterring the locals from forming an armed anti-Taliban militia, as they have done in the past. In mid-June 2009, such an armed militia had killed two militant commanders in Dogh Daara, Dir. After the recent militant attack on Dir, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has announced stronger support for such village militias. Nonetheless, past experience looms large; previous experimentation with militias has had catastrophic outcomes, as the militants struck back with suicide bombings, killing villagers and tribesmen indiscriminately. In June 2010, for instance, a suicide attack at a local mosque in Dogh Daara killed 30 tribesmen. In addition to indiscriminate suicide bombings, the militants have also tended to kidnap militia personnel and take them to bordering provinces in Afghanistan.

The security and government officials say that the TTP militants will not be able to regain control of the Dir region. Instead, it will likely restrict their fighting to hit-and-run tactics, an ideal guerrilla-warfare approach in the rugged terrain of Dir. More worryingly threat posed by these cross-border attacks has already had a significant impact on neighbouring districts and tribal areas. Because Dir borders Bajaur, districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa such as Swat and Chitral, and Afghanistan, it will not only provide a strategic base for attacks in these areas, but will also act as a sanctuary for militants fleeing military operations in neighbouring regions. Afghanistan has already accused the Pakistani militants for attacks on its soil, in particular in Kunar and Nuristan provinces bordering Pakistan. It is therefore imperative that the governments of Islamabad and Kabul collectively tackle the issue of cross-border militant incursions – before the attacks become as ‘large-scale’ as the militants seem to be threatening.

~ Zia Ur Rehman is a freelance journalist and researcher based in Karachi.

Taliban Regroups in Pakistan’s Dir Region after Successful Government Offensive

Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 9 Issue: 9

March 3, 2011 02:49 PM Age: 4 days

By: Zia Ur Rehman

Link of the report

Despite the Pakistani government’s announcement that its military offensive in the mountainous Dir region of northwest Pakistan had succeeded in securing the area, recent attacks by militants of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) have not only belied the military’s claims but have also whipped up fear among local residents. The attacks make it clear that the militants, who had dispersed and fled to Afghanistan and adjacent tribal areas during the operation, are regrouping and trying to regain a foothold in the region.

A former princely state until its incorporation into Pakistan in 1969 and now divided into two districts, lower Dir and Upper Dir, of the Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province (formerly the North-West Frontier Province), Dir borders Swat, the Bajaur Agency, the Chitral district of Khyber Pakhtoonkwa and Afghanistan. [1] Except for the small Dogh Darra area, Dir remained largely undisturbed in recent years, even as militant activities in the region increased.  As the Taliban made inroads in the district in early 2007, fighters from Swat, Bajaur and South Waziristan fled to Dir to escape military operations. The Taliban continued their subversive activities under the leadership of Dir TTP Commander Hafizullah and gained momentum during April 2008. [2] Dir has also remained a strong base for the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Muhammadi (TNSM). The hometown of TNSM founder Maulana Sufi Muhammad is in Dir (See Terrorism Monitor, March 26, 2009).

In early 2009, Taliban from neighboring Swat started to assert their authority in the area, leading the military to launch an operation against the militants in April 2009. Operational commander Colonel Nadeem Mirza declared the entire area of Dir clear of militants following the operation (Express Tribune [Karachi], April 22, 2010).

Since the beginning of 2011, however, the Taliban have started targeting “pro-government” elders and police – ¬sending not only shockwaves throughout the population of Dir but also belying the military’s claims of clearing the area of the militants.

On January 25, militants attacked a guest house belonging to Zahid Khan, an Awami National Party (ANP – the ruling party in Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa) member of the Senate, killing a guard and inflicting injuries on Khan’s brother. Khan’s family had received several threats from the militants for their ties to the ANP, a main ally in flushing militants out from Dir (Dawn, [Karachi], January 26). Three police officials were severely injured when a roadside bomb went off near a police van in the Samar Bagh area of Lower Dir. Members of a local anti-Taliban militia pursued the militants, killing two of them (Dawn, [Karachi], January 3).

However, there have been successes in counterterrorism operations in the region. On February 4, a tip-off led Lower Dir police to raid the house of militant preacher Maulvi Jalaluddin in the Chakdara Afghan refugee camp, arresting him along with his four sons.  Jalaluddin had regular contacts amongst the Pakistani and Afghan militants and police recovered a huge cache of weapons and ammunitions in the raid (Dawn, [Karachi], February 5). Similarly, security forces killed eleven armed militants on the Dir-Swat border on February 10. The men were trying to enter Swat through Dir and police increased their numbers in the area to avoid further penetration of militants into Swat (Daily Shamal [Swat], February 11).  On February 23, police in the Khal area arrested two cousins of Commander Hafizullah who were involved in the January attack on Zahid Khan’s guest house (Daily Azadi [Swat], February 23).

Local tribal elders in Dir suggest that accomplices of Maulana Fazlullah, head of TTP Swat, may be behind the increased militancy in the area. Media reports claimed that Fazlullah and his supporters had fled to the Nuristan province of Afghanistan due to military operation in Swat in 2009  (BBC Urdu, November 17, 2009). However, it is possible Fazlullah’s group has started returning and is now targeting its rivals.

Six men logging forest wood, all from Dir, were kidnapped by Taliban militants in August 2010 and taken to Nuristan. A few days later, the throat-slit bodies of the three men were found in Arandu, an area of Chitral near the Afghanistan border.  The abductees belonged to Dogh Darra, an area of Dir where the locals of 25 villages had formed an armed anti-Taliban militia and killed many militants in June 2009, including two commanders. The confrontation between the locals of Dogh Darra and the militants started on June 5, 2010 when a suicide attack at a local mosque in Dogh Darra killed 30 tribesmen (The News [Islamabad], October 10, 2010).

An elder of Dogh Darra’s anti-Taliban militia said the network of Taliban militants kidnap “pro-government” people from Dir and its surrounding areas and then haul them to Nuristan (News on Sunday [Islamabad], October 10, 2010). Omar Hasan Ahrabi, spokesperson of the TTP group that claimed responsibility for kidnapping the Dogh Darra men, warned that all those joining the anti-Taliban militias would not be spared, as they were government agents who opposed the enforcement of Shari’a in Swat and Dir (The News [Karachi], Sep 2, 2010). Nuristan governor Jamaluddin Badar has also expressed his concern over the infiltration of militants from the Chitral and Dir areas of Pakistan to Nuristan’s Bargmatal and Kamdesh districts (Weesa Warzpanra, [Kabul], January 24). While the Nuristan governor worried about the penetration of Taliban militants from Pakistan into Afghanistan, Malakand police head Qazi Jamil Ur Rehman announced that police and security forces had established checkpoints in the areas bordering the Chitral and Dir districts in order to stop the infiltration of Taliban from Afghanistan (Central Asia Online, January 26).

Dir has again become a hub of militancy as hundreds of militants flee from neighboring Bajaur and Mohmand Agencies to Dir because of on-going military operations in the tribal areas. [3] Those Taliban militants ousted from Swat and Dir by military operations are regrouping in neighboring Mohmand Agency to launch guerrilla warfare in Dir and elsewhere. Qari Abdul Jabbar, a militant from Dir, may have become the new face of militancy in the region by replacing Fazlullah. In Dir, locals said they had heard about Jabbar, who is leading a small group of around 400 militants chased out of Malakand division ago (Express Tribune [Karachi], December 9, 2010).

Military and government officials say the resurgent Taliban will not be able to regain control of Dir, but are likely to restrict their fight to hit-and-run tactics, an ideal guerrilla warfare approach in Dir’s rugged terrain. The threat posed by militants regrouping in Dir has had a significant impact on neighboring districts and tribal areas. Because of its location bordering Swat, Chitral, Bajaur and Afghanistan, Dir can provide a strategic base for attacks in these areas as well as providing sanctuary to militants fleeing military operations in neighboring regions.

Notes:

1. Author’s conversation with Javed Sheikh, a Dir-based journalist, February 15, 2011.
2. Author’s conversation with Aqeel Yousafzai, a Peshawar-based expert and author of two books on militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas, February 16, 2011.
3. Author’s conversation with Aqeel Yousafzai, Feb 15, 2011.

Files:

TM_009_9.pdf

Militants next door

Cross-border movement of Afghan Taliban continues to threaten peace and security in Chitral

By Zia Ur Rehman

Published in The News , 10  October 2010

On September 30, some 250 Taliban insurgents entered Chitral’s tehsil Arandu from Nuristan in bordering Afghanistan and tied the Pakistani security personnel deputed at a Gudibar checkpost with rope and snatched their rifles. According to press reports “about 70 masked men armed with weapons looted the equipment including uniforms and weapons from the security personnel of the checkpost after injuring them and fled to Afghanistan”. This frightened the wits out of the otherwise peace-loving and civilised Chitralis.

But, in a normally calm Chitral, a district of Malakand division of Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, which borders Afghanistan’s provinces Nuristan and Kunar, this was not the first incident of its kind: On August 29, six men, logging forest wood in the Upper Dir district, were kidnapped allegedly by the Taliban and taken to Nuristan. A few days later, the throat-slit bodies of the three men were found in Arandu.

Incidentally, the kidnapped men belonged to Dhog Dara, an area of Upper Dir where the locals of 25 villages formed an armed anti-Taliban militia and killed many militants including two commanders in June last year. The confrontation was triggered on June 5 “when a suicide attack at a local mosque in Dogh Dara killed 40 local tribesmen”, states Javed Sheikh, an Upper Dir-based journalist.

Haji Motabar Khan, a leader of Dog Dara’s militia, says the network of Taliban militants kidnap the people from Chitral and its surrounding areas and then haul them to Nuristan. Khan criticised the local police and the administration, “They do not take action against the militants present in the valley”.

According to him, another three labourers were kidnapped as a protest against the formation of the Dhog Dara militia.

Reportedly, Omar Hasan Ahrabi, spokesperson of the outlawed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) Malakand Division, while claiming responsibility of kidnapping the Dhog Dara’s men, said all those joining the anti-militants militias would not be spared — as they are government agents and oppose the enforcement of Sharia in Swat and Malakand Division (The News September 2).

Later, the Taliban set the three labourers free and handed them over to the Chitral district administration.

On September 7 last year, a Greek social worker Athanassios Lerunis was kidnapped by Taliban militants from Chitral’s Bambouret Valley and shifted to Nuristan. The abductors killed a policeman and injured two others who tried to foil the kidnapping. Lerunis was released in April this year in exchange of two Afghan Taliban commanders, one of them Maulana Rahmatuddin Nuristani. They also got millions of rupees in ransom, revealed an elder who was part of the jirga which went from Chitral to Nuristan to seek the recovery of Lerunis.

Authorities deny such a deal. A local elder, requesting anonymity, says Zahir, a former Afghan Taliban leader living in Chitral, played an important role in the release of Lerunis.

Nuristan, Afghanistan’s north-eastern province, is considered a stronghold of the Afghan Taliban. “Afghan Taliban govern the area. The Taliban Shura appointed Sheikh Dost Muhammad as a shadow governor of the province,” says Ali Afzal, a member of the local Sheikh tribe. Sheikhan tribesmen live in both Nuristan and Chitral and therefore Chitralis blame the locals for extending assistance to Nuristani Taliban in Chitral.

Some media reports also suggest that head of TTP Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, is hiding in Nuristan. Few months ago Afghan officials claimed Fazlullah had been killed in the Barg-e-Matal area of Nuristan but later Mufti Munibullah, head of Afghan Taliban in Nuristan, denied such reports. Faqir Muhammad, the TTP leader in Bajour agency, also said that Fazlullah could be in Nuristan because the Taliban have been moving back and forth along the Pakistan-Afghan border.

In an interview with BBC in November last year, Fazlullah said he had escaped to Afghanistan after a Pakistani military offensive against the Taliban in his Swat Valley stronghold in April last year.

Local political analysts are of view that Chitral has been steadily becoming more conservative and the influence of religious political parties has been on the rise. A development expert, who wished not to be named due to security reasons, confirmed the presence of both Malakand and Nuristan Taliban militants in the valley, and said these militants are also fanning sectarian violence in neighbouring Gilgit. He recalled that offices of the Agha Khan Rural Support Programme (AKRSP), sponsored by Ismaili leader Prince Karim Agha Khan, were attacked by religious extremists in late 2004 while two workers of AKRSP were killed in December 2004.

Consequently, the relations between Sunnis (that constitute 65 percent of the Chitral population) and Ismaili Shias (35 percent) have become strained because of the influence of religious radical groups in the district. A small portion of the non-Muslim Kalash community, famous for its traditional dances and beautiful dress, are based in the south of the district.

Shehzada Mahiuddin, member of National Assembly elected from the district, admits Chitral has felt the effects of insurgency going on in Afghanistan. “In a bid to stop the incursions by the Afghan Taliban, we (the local government) are sending a local tribal jirga to Nuristan to meet the Taliban leadership,” he says, adding that contingents of paramilitary forces and police have been deployed at the borders and all the entry and exit point along the Pak-Afghan border following the incidents of incursion of Afghan Taliban.

The writer is an independent journalist and works on militancy, development and human rights.

Email:

zia_red@hotmail.com