Tuesday
Mar032009
Mr Obama's War: Pakistan Insurgency "Unites" (You Heard It Here First)
Tuesday, March 3, 2009 at 13:34
Related Post: Mr Obama’s Doctrine - Josh Mull on US Grand Strategy in Pakistan and Beyond
Enduring America, 23 February: "The Asia Times reports, in the aftermath of the local cease-fire between the Pakistani Governments and groups in the Northwest Frontier Provice, 'A mujahideen shura (Shura Ittehad al-Mujahideen) council was formed this weekend due to the personal efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani.'"
The Guardian, 3 March: "Three rival Pakistani Taliban groups have agreed to form a united front against international forces in Afghanistan in a move likely to intensify the insurgency just as thousands of extra US soldiers begin pouring into the country as part of Barack Obama's surge plan. The Guardian has learned that three of the most powerful warlords in the region have settled their differences and come together under a grouping calling itself Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen, or Council of United Holy Warriors."
The Guardian may be getting to the story a bit late but at least, unlike most media in the "West", it has noted a significant development.
And, to give reporter Saeed Shah further credit, the article picks up on the equally important "other half" of the story: "The unity among the militants comes after a call by Mullah Omar, the cleric who leads the Afghan Taliban, telling Pakistani militants to stop fighting at home in order to join the battle to 'liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces'."
No doubt Josh Mull, who has posted essential blogs for Enduring America on the Pakistani insurgency, can go a bit further than the simple call-and-response narrative. As he has noted, the "Taliban" is now a coalition of forces, some of whom have moved beyond Mullah Omar, and Pakistani local insurgents have their own motives for offering to hold fire at home and fighting abroad.
Still the essential question is now put: are the manoeuvres between the insurgent groups and the Pakistani Government for cease-fires and local deals going to free up these forces to wage an even more intense campaign against the US and its "Obama Doctrine" not just in Pakistan but across the border?
Enduring America, 23 February: "The Asia Times reports, in the aftermath of the local cease-fire between the Pakistani Governments and groups in the Northwest Frontier Provice, 'A mujahideen shura (Shura Ittehad al-Mujahideen) council was formed this weekend due to the personal efforts of Sirajuddin Haqqani.'"The Guardian, 3 March: "Three rival Pakistani Taliban groups have agreed to form a united front against international forces in Afghanistan in a move likely to intensify the insurgency just as thousands of extra US soldiers begin pouring into the country as part of Barack Obama's surge plan. The Guardian has learned that three of the most powerful warlords in the region have settled their differences and come together under a grouping calling itself Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen, or Council of United Holy Warriors."
The Guardian may be getting to the story a bit late but at least, unlike most media in the "West", it has noted a significant development.
And, to give reporter Saeed Shah further credit, the article picks up on the equally important "other half" of the story: "The unity among the militants comes after a call by Mullah Omar, the cleric who leads the Afghan Taliban, telling Pakistani militants to stop fighting at home in order to join the battle to 'liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces'."
No doubt Josh Mull, who has posted essential blogs for Enduring America on the Pakistani insurgency, can go a bit further than the simple call-and-response narrative. As he has noted, the "Taliban" is now a coalition of forces, some of whom have moved beyond Mullah Omar, and Pakistani local insurgents have their own motives for offering to hold fire at home and fighting abroad.
Still the essential question is now put: are the manoeuvres between the insurgent groups and the Pakistani Government for cease-fires and local deals going to free up these forces to wage an even more intense campaign against the US and its "Obama Doctrine" not just in Pakistan but across the border?
Reader Comments (1)
Well, my first thought was that it smacks of the same type of western fear mongering that produced last month's sensational stories about how the old 55th Arab Brigade had remixed itself into an al-Qa'eda Super Army of 50,000 or whatever it was (Kind of like that massive battalion of North Vietnamese regulars that was always just...just...just a little bit further up the Ho Chi Minh Trail, if only they'd let us go...)
But actually good on you for pointing out Saeed Shah, as he's actually a pretty badass reporter. (He comes via McClatchy and they're not known for screwing around.) At the very least it's safe to assume he understands the differences among anonymous sources, leaks, and plants.
The angle I see here is that it is remarkably similar to what happened from 2004-2007 in Iraq with the Sunni and Arab insurgencies. They started out as small, independent bands of ex-Ba'athist regulars and Saddam Fedeyeen, morphed into cellular, cloud-like organizations with names like the 1920 Revolution Brigade and al-Qa'eda in Mesopotamia, then finally into mature Non-State Actors (in the vein of Hizb'allah) with groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and AQI.
What we have in AfPak follows the same lines, with the remnants of Omar's Taliban and feudal clansmen in southern Afghanistan coalescing into a larger mass, and then appearing to join with other groups like Mehsud, Haqqani, etc and actually going so far as to give themselves a new name, the Council of United Holy Warriors (SIuM).
Here's what I'll need to answer in my assessment.
1. If the insurgencies in Iraq and AfPak are parallel, at what stage is the AfPak insurgency with regard to Iraq. (ie, is it small bands of Bob the Insurgent, or is it Hizb'allah, or in the middle?)
2. Where does this parallel break down? What makes a Ba'athist different from a Pashtun warrior or an Azeri jihadist, and so forth.
3. Is the apparent evolution of the AfPak insurgency a positive or negative development for the "Obama Doctrine," or both?
I won't however be tackling the question as asked, "are the manoeuvres between the insurgent groups and the Pakistani Government for cease-fires and local deals going to free up these forces to wage an even more intense campaign against the US and its “Obama Doctrine” not just in Pakistan but across the border?"
I'm going to try to answer that in #1 and #3 I think. Going to sleep now, I'll be back.
(Also, just as a thought exercise, what data do we have to show that a decrease in hostility with the Pakistani Gov't automatically frees up forces to fight the Americans? Given that insurgencies grow organically out of the population, what proof do we have that these various soldiers don't just go home? Do they all stay with the militia? Do they all go to Afghanistan? Hmmm, something to chew on sometime, but for now we'll stick with the original assumption)
UPDATE: For clarity's sake, I'm using the "Obama Doctrine" strictly as a reference to the strategic principles I laid out previously, totally separate from the words and actions of the actual President Obama. They are NOT interchangeable things.
Yet ;)