World Renewed Focus on Pakistan:

Besides triggering a strong-worded warning of ‘severe consequences’ from Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, the Faisal Shahzad episode also brings Pakistan wild Waziristan region under international spotlight, prompting many to wonder as to what is so special about Waziristan? Let us examine why North Waziristan in particular remains a special focus for the United States, which says success against insurgents nestled in North Waziristan is crucial for the counter-insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan.

What is Waziristan?

The Waziristan region occupies roughly 11,000 of the 27,200 square kilometres of Pakistan semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Divided in south and north, the largely mountainous region borders eastern Afghan provinces Khost, Paktia, Paktika, with a combined population of a little less than a million. Ethnic Pashtoons tribes – Wazirs, Mehsuds, and Dawars being the major tribes – inhabit Waziristan.

Both Mehsud and Wazir tribes take pride in their reputation as warriors and are known for their frequent blood feuds. According to historian Sir Olaf Caroe, Mehsuds would never consider submitting to a foreign power that has entered their land. The prevailing conditions¶the insurgency led by the TTP bears testimony to the almost prophetic assessment Caroe had made of the Mehsud tribes.

For its proximity to eastern Afghanistan, Waziristan has been at the centre of the Islamist militancy, particularly since the mid 1980s, when the Pakistani ISI, funded by the American CIA, began hosting and facilitating jihadists from all over the world to fight the Soviet occupation forces in Afghanistan. Waziristan served as one of the staging posts for the ISI-CIA-led Jihad inside Afghanistan.

Even after the Soviet pullout of Afghanistan in Feb 1989, North Waziristan in particular remained an important outpost, a transit point as well as a refuge for all Afghan and non-Afghan radical Islamists, including Osama bin Laden, who had set up camps across the border in Khost in late 1980s.

Waziristan after the Fall of Taliban from Kabul:

Following the defeat of the Taliban regime in December 2001, Waziristan turned into a major regrouping hubs for the retreating Afghan and al Qaeda fighters. Many important Al Qaeda leaders, including Abu Zubayda and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad transited through North Waziristan on their way to the Pakistani cities of Faisalabad and Rawalpindi, where they were captured in 2002 and 2003 respectively.

Both North and South Waziristan in fact gradually became the ultimate destination for scores of al Qaeda inspired zealots, a fact borne by the 125 or so drone attacks on suspected al Qaeda and Taliban militants in the region since early 2009, including the one on May 9, 2010 at a target in Dattakhel village in North Waziristan.

Many, therefore, also wonder as to who are the main players driving and facilitating the insurgency from North Waziristan?

Main Leadership of Militants:

Afghan war veteran Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin Haqqani, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, the head of his own faction of Tehriki Taliban, Maulvi Sadiq Noor, and Militants from Central Asia, especially those associated with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), constitute the core of militancy that is believed to be operating against the US-led coalition forces out of North Waziristan.

JALALUDDIN HAQQANI, believed to be in early 70s, is a veteran of the Afghan Jihad against the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and commanded mujahideen troops in the eastern Paktia and Paktika provinces. Saudi Arabian intelligence agency also extended considerable support to Haqqani.

Currently, the eldest son Sirajuddin Haqqani is actively leading the “Amarate Islami Afghanistan”, group which is also a spiritual umbrella organization for several local warlords like his father, Sirajuddin Haqqani is believed to have close ties with Al-Qaeda.

Amarate Islami Afghanistan maintains very good relationship with a cross-section of Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives including Hafiz Gul Bahader, Mullah Saungeen, Sadiq Noor, Maulvi Bukhat Jaan, Ahsanullah, as well as commanders like Hakimullah Mehsud of TTP and Mullah Nazir, who heads his own faction of the Tehriki Taliban . Pakistani outfits Harkatul Mujahideen, and Jaishe Muhammad, as well as, Al-Qaida, Uzbekistan’s IMU, Arabs, Jaishe Mehdi and a Turkish militant organization also count among Haqqani’s allies and friends.

Haqqani Amarate Islami Afghanistan is considered as a cover for many militant groups, most of which stick around Haqqanis out of compulsion and not choice. Dependence of external groups on Haqqanis makes the Amarate Islami quite a lethal character in the ongoing anti-US insurgency in Afghanistan, as well as, Pakistan’s tribal lands. The primary target of theUS Forward Operating Base Chapman in Khost near North Waziristan has also been the Haqqani network.

Since late 2009, US forces and the CIA have escalated their shadow war against the Haqqani group in recent weeks through contingents of elite American Special Operations.

HAFIZ GUL BAHADUR epitomises the Pakistani Taliban movement in North Waziristan. A Madakhel Wazir by tribe, Bahadur is the head of Tehriki Taliban North Waziristan. Bahadur rose to prominence with the backing of Haqqanis, whereby he outdid another commander Sadiq Noor. Since a peace-deal with the Pakistan army in the fall of 2007, military operation against the militants in North Waziristan in July-October 2007, Hafiz Gul Bahadur has largely been in peace with the authorities, barring a few incidents involving attacks on the Pakistani army, including a few in the first four months of 2010 as well.

MAULANA SADIQ NOOR, 46, a Dawar Pashtoon, and Maulvi Abdul Khaliq Dawar are other Pakistani supporters of al Qaeda and the Haqqani network.

As a whole, Haqqanis, Bahadur, Sadiq Noor, Abdul Khaliq and Mulla Nazir Ahmed can be dubbed as the most ardent al Qaeda inspired anti-US militants, wedded to the idea of Jihad against foreign troops in Afghanistan. All these leaders also played an active behind-the-scenes role in the controversial September 5th, 2006, peace deal.

These independent power-brokers in the Waziristan region strike and scrap deals with the Pakistani authorities whenever it suits them. Political black-mail for their own monetary gains or so called ideological objectives remains the most striking hallmark of these militants, bonded by al Qaeda trans-continental idea of jihad that includes hurting the US interests wherever possible.

Also, most of these militants have had good working relationship with the Pakistani security establishment, something that has apparently restricted the army from an all-out crackdown against the Haqqanis and his Pakistani affiliates. In the weeks to come, deference to its own medium to long term interests – old ties to some of the groups, social considerations and cross-border tribal affinities – will test out Pakistan commitment to the US-led counter-insurgency drive.