Taliban, Pashtoons and Pakistan

Kulharee,

Give them independence...... Do you think that they consider themselves actually bound by anything? It reminds me of an interview that I read somewhere. A western journalist was interviewing a bedu in sinai area after 1967 arab israel war. He asked him that who he thinks has a better claim on sinai area; Israel or Egypt. He was stunned with the answer as it was true to the tribal bedu values. He said sinai belong to bedus. I don't know why they are fighting over it.

Anyhow, we we disconnect them with us, it means to forego settle areas adjacent to that. If you go back to 1893 when Durand line accord was signed, these areas were included on Pakistan side of Durand line because of the fact that these tribes had their commercial links with cities on this side. These cities were peshawar, D.I.Khan and so on. Those tribes who used jalalabad and other cities on afghan side were kept on afghan side of durand line. These tribes cannot live without these links. Further, it would also aggrevate the pathan majority in NWFP main cities. Even karachi is a significant pashtun city, where pashtun population is perhaps equal to or more than peshawar.

If you wanna come up with something more constructive, be my guest. I am all ears.....

Why doesn’t Pakistan just give independence to FATA and let them have their own little charas republic. And if they attack a sovereign country as powerful as Pakistan, let them suffer the consequence. This bull has gone for too long.

Re: # 17

Fakir Ipi,

Yes I am punjabi and thats part of my identity, but I have lived all my life in NWFP with the exception of last few years, and almost 100% of my friends are either mehsoods or wazirs. So I do know what I am talking about....

Re: # 12

I think we are on the same wavelength with the exception that I am hopeful that there might be a way to integrate tribals in modern state concept.

Re: # 10

You might be right that Goras saved us from sikhs, but afghan invasions were treating the muslim punjabis the same way.

as far as remarks of fazl-e-hussain are concerned, Jinnah uttered them when he could not win political support from Punjab where sikh + muslim unionist party was ruling, and perhaps they were said by him in 1930's when he first came in punjab. This fact is mentioned either in Ayesha jalal's book or Stalnley wolport's book. you can check the context in which they were said.

But afterwards, Jinnah knew that he cannot win the all india muslim cause without Punjab and bengal with him. Thats why afterwards he had an agreement with main unionist party leader.

Re: # 8

Detriblize, Thats exactly what we have to work out. You are right that war is not a solution.

Unfortunately, I have to disagree with the Good Major. The only thing that the tribals understand is force and massive, overwhelming force at that. If you actually read history, as the Good Major has but choses to ignore, you will realize that the British beat the living crap out of the tribals many, many times. The only problem was that they were never willing to pay the cost of a full campaign to pacify them. They saw the FATA concept, with a few permanent garrisons and the odd punitive expedition, as a reasonably cost effective solution.

If people like Curzon had their way, the Empire would have been extended to the Central Asian Emirates, who were begging to be included in the Raj, and Afghanistan would have, perforce, been pacified. Of course, it would still have been the Wild West compared to settled India but might not have been as reactionary as it is now since there would ahve been no Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the creation by the US-Saudi-Pakistan axis of the jihadist mindset.

Major Sahib, why do you conveniently ignore the fact that Hari Singh Nalwa completely pacified the Pathans for Ranjit Singh? Or that Avitabile ruled Peshawar with an iron fist and not a peep was heard from any Pathan? Of course, the fact that Avitabile handed out jagirs whose rent was payable in Afghan heads kept the barbarians quiet. Avitabile also, IIRC, used to be famous for hanging Afghans from Bala Hissar Fort before breakfast, in order to aid his digestion.

The British, after the glorious Afghan victory against Elphinstone, sacked and burnt Kabul. Similarly, Bobs Bahadur occupied Kabul again half a century later and the British again beat the Afghans in 1919; after winning the Third Afghan War just packed up and left Afghanistan. Similarly, the Russians never, at any time, had more than 100-125K combat troops in Afghanistan and, if they had put in 1/2 of what the US did in Vietnam, women would still be wearing skirts in Kabul.

Finally, the Taliban were defeated quite handily post-9-11. IF the US had put in the number of troops needed to hold Afghanistan AND chased Mullah Omar and Bin Laden into FATA and exterminated them like the vermin they are, the situation now might be a bit different.

However, just because the US Pentagon and White House are run by idiots doesn't make the tribals morally superior or in any way unbeatable. They have always been beaten very easily by most competent militaries.

Now, if you were to argue that the PakArmy is too incompetent to beat the tribals, I might not disagree with you. However, one good thing about sacking generals is that, given enough time, you just might get a competent one. Would Gen. Iftikhar Janjua have made as bad a hash of things as the current crop of generals have? You're a rissala wala; how about someone like Brig. Jaffar? Despite the fact that he was Guides and you're PAVO, you have to admit he was a competent soldier. We do have a few in the Army but the major problem with the it is that it really hasn't fought a war for a very long time; maybe never actually. A real war where the men in charge fire incompetent generals and let someone else have a go when the current GHQ warrior fizzles out. You've written about the Goof selection syndrome; my late father used to say that the Army cultivated a cult of mediocrity. Is it any surprise that they have made a hash of things in FATA? Maybe, if there are widespread sackings, a competent officer will be put in charge of operations and you'll see results there. One can only hope.

Re: # 15

Ironically, it is no one else but Punjab that will save the day. AS the coffins have started coming to Gujar Khan, Jehlum, and Attock, it will be the Punjab who will stop this namak haram fouj from killing more citizens. It is not 1971 and warfront is not 1000 miles away; the war is happening just at our backyard and even in our streets. Military days have been numbered. It cannot get legitimacy even through an election any more. Military command will have to make some very painful decisions in this year. In my opinion fouji junta will try to drag it as far as Novemeber when there will be a regime change in US. The outcome of that regime change will determine Afghanistan's and fouj'sfuture.

Re: # 16

"let punjab be a part of india.thats a good idea.100 marks"

Over my dead body. Just kidding.
But seriously, why would India want to do such a thing?
India has seen these west punjabis in action, they
do not need them again. For that matters Sindhis too.
India is doing fine without them, let it be.

Re: # 16

Hold on there - you keep your Poonjab and FATA and waht not... we indians don't want no part of this mess :)

I think the afgans would be happy - they have been asking for that land for a while anyway.

So win-win for everybody... Poonjabis have their land, pathans their... Sindhi can go their way... just give muhajir fools like salim a patch somewhere and everything will be just fine...

PAVO CAVALRY I LIKED UR FOLLOWING POST ON KHALID BHATTI THAT PUNJABI CHAUVINITS ARTICLE:--

the pashtuns of tribal areas are not what Mr Jinnah the founder of Pakistan called "hopeless Punjabis" .You Punjabis were 90 % of Punjab and the Sikhs were using your Badshahi Mosque of Lahore as a Horse Stable and ypu Punjabis had invented the shuttle cock burqa so that your fair sex are not abducted by the Sikhs at will.And the knight in shining armour General Sir Hugh Gough of Bengal Army of English East India Company saved u Punjabi Muslims from being deflowered by the Sikhs.

You Punjabi Muslims cannot be compared with the indomitable tribals.

You Punjabi Muslim troops fored even at the Holy Kabaa.

Azeem Hussain son of Sir Fazl i Hussian himself a Punjabi thus quoted Jinnah " THE PUNJAB IS A HOPELESS PLACE , I WILL NEVER VISIT IT AGAIN" . You Punjabi Lotus Eaters.

let FATA be independent and let punjab be a part of india.thats a good idea.100 marks.

...pakistan should let fata be a in independent country.......what exactly does pakistan get from fata.....other than trouble.......

fata gets everything from pakistan......electricity, funds, seats in the assembly, smuggled cars etc.....this is why fata never breaks away from pakistan, even though it keeps demanding its autonomy......

......so let fata be independent.....after that, fata and usa can fight each other to their hearts desire....fata can assist the taliban, and usa can bomb fata.....and pakistan doesn't have to assist or oppose either.....

Waziristan



Normally the article below by Major AH Amin (Pakistan Army, Retired) would be in ANALYSIS. But because of the importance of the topic, we're printing it here. For those unfamiliar with Major Amin: he writes for a Pakistani audience and readers may find some of his references a bit oblique. We've explained best we can. He is very sharp spoken, without dissimulation or politeness. His acerbic characterization of Pakistani intelligence is, alas, all too common among the world's intelligence agencies. As for his attack on Pakistan Army tactics, the same can be said of many armies we need not name.



Waziristan is the testing ground, the acid test of Pakistan Army's worth in the so- called war against terrorism.

What is the Pakistani intelligence ? An intelligence operative stated that they don't have the guts to go out of a fort of FC in Waziristan. They meekly step out of a Qila (fort) and stop some truck drivers and ask what's going on. From what they scramble all the guys from Military Intelligence, the ISI , the Corps Intelligence and the FC Intelligence sit down and make a generally similar report. The guy who compares all reports in GHQ jumps with joy when he sees all these reports and states that all reports can be cross checked and are correct. There is the Sab Accha mentality since Mughal times. Sab Accha means All Correct. So in the final summing it is gleefully concluded that the writ of the Pakistani Government is established in all parts of tribal areas! Glory be to Allah.

I recently met some mid-ranking and major-general level army officers and discussed Waziristan with them. We concluded:

Waziristan is a case of clash of interests among ambitious officers trying to get a good chit (report) and serious regimental officers who see soldiering as a way of life. The fast-track guys want to bash up some villages with artillery fire and do some dog catching for Americans and improve their career index called OEI.

The first major disaster was Lt.-Gen. Safdar, a Punjabi and a careerist. He wanted a fast-track approach for the problem, .His policy was bomb everyone, kill everyone and get the feathers in the cap for being a conqueror. This was counter-productive. The armed forces lost all credibility in this area. Safdar was finally packed off to the post of director logistics in the army Headquarters a post seen as waiting area for dumped generals.

Lieutenant General Hamid Khan, a Pashtun armored corps officer from 11 Cavalry was not effective. During his tenure the army was neither here nor there. He was serving for most of the time when the Waziristan accord had been signed.

The present corps commander Masud Aslam was a Kargil Warrior! (Major Amin is not being complimentary.) He again tried to introduce the Safdar policy with disastrous results.

One Major General level divisional commander stood out. Strangely it was a Shia officer, Major General Mir Haider. Although a Punjabi he understood the Pasthun psyche and did well. His modus operandi was psy war. Healing the tribal eg . Gifting copies of Holy Quran.

Another Major General Sahi was a failure. Again he was using the Safdar approach. Kill , batter , destroy and bomb. Sahi had close links with the Quisling PML (President Musharraf's political party: the writer believes Pakistan has sold out to the Americans) as his brother was a politician from that party. In words of a direct participant officer, he was also a total failure. He was finally packed off as commandant of infantry school. Another resting place of dumped generals. In his dining out he said that he had established writ of Pakistani Government in Waziristan and was corrected there and then by a serving army officer that this was a white lie. He was challenged that he could not drive with his GOC's flag from Miran Shah to Bannu even with an escort! He was infamous in the Frontier Corps Officers for trying to prod them to attack this village or that because he wanted to get a good chit from his bosses.

A serving army officer in that area compared Pakistan Army and the FC in Waziristan to a mouse running from point A to point B while he said that the tribals were the lazy cat watching this despicable mouse.

We further concluded:

The great danger is not Pakistan but the fall-out after its demise.

The great danger to the West is not the hopeless Pakistani state but non-state actors

The more Pakistani Don Quixotes are proved to be spineless clowns in Waziristan, the more dangerous the situation becomes.

Warfare has become cheap. It is easy to rock the boat and non-state actors are good at this.

The front is unclear. The distinction between friend and foe unclear.

My assessment is that if the Americans decide to knock out Pakistan , in strategic terms , there will be no resistance in Punjab and Sindh ,only the Pashtuns will be their adversaries and the settled area Pashtuns will be as hopeless as the Punjabis and Sindhis.

Pakistan's military and political establishment is simply hopeless. This theme is discussed in my article "5 minutes over Islamabad" (the article details how the US forced Pakistan to join it's side in the GWOT.) The Pakistani military junta has already lost all credibility with the Pakistani population and cannot control the situation.

Even the Americans will not achieve much if they enter Waziristan. The terrain is bad and Americans will be a good cause for Jihad. The solution is withdrawal from Waziristan and regime change in Pakistan. The Americans should let the hopeless Paki politicians do the dirty job of all this.

As an officer who served in Pakistan Army I would sum up the situation as following:

The Pakistani High Command a Punjabi-Mohajir (Mohajirs are Pakistans who migrated from India to the new country of Pakistan in/after 1947) team lacks the grey matter or resolve to deal with the tribals.

The troops they are commanding have lost faith in the cause they are fighting for. This is the worst thing for an army.

All said and done the tribals can be dealt politically. Any Pakistani officer who is posted as commander 11 Corps is a job seeker. He is trying to be a Napoleon and a Punjabi cannot be a Napoleon with a tribal!

The present Governor of NWFP Owais Ghani has already miserably failed in Baluchistan. He is regarded as a non-Pashtun as he is the hated Hindko Punjabi (we dont know what Hindko means; Hind generally refers to India) speaking from Peshawar city just like General Kakar, whose first cousin he is.

The whole situation requires a change in command in Pakistan from top to bottom.

Re: # 6 ISI is full of punjabis , check ur facts

WHY WAZIRISTAN CANNOT BE CONQUERED

A.H AMIN

FEBRUARY 20034

Those who know the Pathans and their history will know exactly what is happening in Waziristan today and which Lashkar is doing what and for what reason. The tribal Pathans have traditionally been supreme fighters who defied the Mughal occupiers, the Sikh occupiers, the British occupiers and now the latest occupiers, i.e. the US coalition chasing the Pathans and Muslims of various castes and creeds motivated by sheer ideology.

While the tribesmen know the art of resistance they also know the art of extortion from occupiers who try to buy them. Thus while the tribal Pathans killed many thousand occupiers in the British era they also managed to extort many subsidy payments from the British. Thus the same tribesmen who worked as contract laborers making roads for the British during day time, enjoyed sniping and shooting many British officers after sunset or during daytime when not on duty.

Thus when a lashkar of tribesmen appears to be on the payroll of political agents fed by US CIA dollars, all is not what it seems. In this case the tribals are performing an overt function of collaboration and a covert function of increasing their financial muscle which may be subsequently channelised into gun running, drugs or Jihad.

The tribesmen were not loyal subjects of the British. They spent their lives in sniping and ambushing the British and their mercenary Indian troops. Their life script was not to get a BA degree and become a minor civil servant or an ICS officer more loyal than the King. Nor did they get barristers degree and conduct profitable law practices in the courts of the British occupiers.

These men defied the British, killing over 10,000 British or Indian troops from 1849 to 1947, bleeding the British Empire white, forcing the British to maintain a division plus force in the Trans Indus tribal tract. These tribesmen gave sanctuary to Mughal Prince Ferozshah and to the followers of Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Barelly at Malka and Ambela. These tribesmen greeted the British Indian army with fire while many today are famous as great Muslim leaders accepted knighthood and were ridiculed for doing so by Maulana Zafar Ali Khan of "Zamindar" fame.

The tribesmen acceded to Pakistan out of their free will. They were not conquered by the Pakistan Army. As a matter of fact no army including the Mughal, Sikh or British ever succeeded in conquering them. The tribal areas were occupied, overrun but never conquered. Their mosques were never used as stables and powder magazines as many in the tract East of Indus including the Badshahi Mosque of Lahore.

The tribesmen were not saved by the army of the English East India Company unlike the Muslims of Delhi or UP or the Muslims of Punjab and settled Pathan areas were from Hindu Marathas and Sikhs in 1803 and 1849. The tribesmen's mosques were not restored after humble petitioning to the English East India Company as was the case with Badshahi Mosque of Lahore in 1856.

The tribesmen were not willing mercenaries of the British and many Mehsuds, Wazirs and Afridis defected to the German lines in WW-I and returned to Tirah and Waziristan to wage Jihad against the British. The tribesmen cannot be compared with mercenary Muslim troops who opened fire on the Holy Ka'aba on British orders or who gunned down freedom fighters like an FF unit did at Jallianwalla Bagh in 1919.

The tribesmen acceded to Pakistan on the solemn assurance by Mr Jinnah that their customs and their Pathan way of life would not be interfered with. The tribesmen waged Pakistan's first successful Jihad in Kashmir in 1947-48. The tribesmen were used as cannon fodder during the Afghan War of 1979-89 when many generals became rich overnight and won cheap glory without exposing themselves to within 300 miles of hostile fire. The tribals braved salvoes of Soviet Katushkas and shrapnel of Hind Gun ships while sons of ex military tailors became billionaires.

The tribals were more Pan Islamist than Jamaluddin Afghani, more martial than any so called martial race of Indo Pak. More resolute than any general from Cape Komorin to Khunjerab Pass. The tribals are raised as snipers, not as sycophants, their life script is not to please 15 different seniors and get a good ACR, practicing sycophancy with civilian prime ministers and launching coups without a shot being fired against unarmed civilian heads of state.

What is happening in the tribal areas is not in Pakistan's national interests. The venom which has been forced into the tribal Pathan's soul is counterproductive for Pakistan in the long run.

The tribal areas has seen many occupiers. They are classic practitioners of Liddell Harts strategy of indirect approach. Their guerrilla tactics are far more subtle than that of Mao, Ho Chi Minh or Che Guevara. They apply Mao without knowing what he had written. They apply Sandino's Nicaraguan tactics which brought US Marines to grief without ever having heard of him. They are warriors par excellence.

For each militant handed over the tribals gain goodwill from greedy political agents who they deceive and thus succeed in sheltering 50 militants. There is a method in the apparent outward collaboration of the tribals. They cannot be overawed by a telephone call or bought by a million dollar retainer.

No cadet school or college can tame the tribals for whom music is the whistling bullet and its ricochet in the rocky gorges of Waziristan. The tribals don't need a federal government to make money. Their very location is an asset.

Beware of despising the tribals. They brought both Muslim and non Muslim Emperors to grief whether it was Jahangir, Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb, Ranjit Singh or the British king.

These are not the men who would sell their mother for a thousand dollars as some US senator said about some Pakistani leaders. These leaders may be found in Dera Ghazi Khan or somewhere East of the tribal areas. The tribals are sons of their fathers and there is no confusion about their paternity.

A man who does not know the tribal Pathan way of life is not competent to judge the subtleties of their character. It appears that the same mistake is being made today in the highest echelons of Pakistan's present military usurpers.