Importance of Quetta: Quetta is closely situated to Kandahar, the birthplace of the Afghan Taliban movement, and to Zahedan, the Iranian border town. Its location makes Quetta one of the most important Southern cities of Pakistan with immense potential of trade, communications ´ and suspected cross border infiltrations. The strategically vital city also lies on the Bolan Pass route which was once the only gateway to and from South Asia and if developed properly, would still have much more importance than many other routes in region. Ever since the Taliban defeat in December 2001, Quetta has remained in focus for three reasons for:
1. its ethnic Pashtoon majority;
2. long time presence of at least 300,000 Afghan refugees, displaced due to the civil war in Afghanistan;
3. being the only big city on the Pak-Afghan and Pak-Iran border with a strong military presence.
Most of the affluent ones continue to live in and around the city, occupying big settlements including the Pashtoonabad neighborhood, which is reportedly home to hundreds of influential Afghan families. Quetta, therefore, mostly wears the look of a Taliban city; black-turbaned, bearded Pasthoons stalking roads and markets in the traditional loose dress that all Pashtoons between Quetta and Kandahar wear. It makes them all look like members of the Taliban movement, something very striking particularly for maiden visitors or foreigners.
What is Quetta Shura: One of the themes, recurring in the US civilian and military leaders, relates to the alleged presence of Afghan Taliban in the Pakistani southwestern Balochistan province that shares a 1,360 kilometer long border with Afghanistan. ‘Quetta Shura’ (QS) is the metaphor used to underscore that key Afghan Taliban leaders are using Quetta, the provincial capital, as their command and control headquarters for their militant activities inside Afghanistan. Pakistani authorities have been under pressure from the US for quite some time to dismantle Taliban structures inside Balochistan, commonly known as the QS. As late as December 2009, US officials in Islamabad and Karachi, openly talked about the presence of key militants in Quetta, saying members of Al Qaeda could be a part of the QS operating out of the city. Quetta, surrounded by hills on three sides is spread over 2,653 km2. Quetta has a population close to a million and is Pakistan ninth biggest city, barely 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Afghan border. One of Afghan Taliban’s former chief spokesman was seized from Quetta in 2005.
West undermines Pakistan sincerity: Pakistanis army and ISI officials, therefore, question what they call mere ‘propaganda and a pressure ploy,’ saying if the US had real actionable intelligence on the QS, they would have gone after the Taliban themselves. If the ISI helped catch people such Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, of the 9/11 masterminds, (from a locality near the General Headquarter), one, Abu Zubaida (from Faisalabad), and Taliban leader Mulla Dadullah brother from Quetta, why wouldn–t it extend similar support to get hold of or fix the Taliban leadership, they ask. What most foreigners overlook is the extremely porous border, thin administrative and security infrastructure that allows militants and tribesmen to easily move across the border. Nearly 20 tribes live on both sides of the Pak-Afghan border and that makes it easier for individuals ´ whose faces are little known in the public ´ to move in and out of shelters and guest houses in Quetta or some border towns such Chamman, Mand and Panjgoor. Islamists, say security officials, also use the Pak-Iran border, which too is poorly guarded. The ISI currently holds dozens of Turkic origin men and women, some Chechens, Arabs as well as Iranian Balochis, who were intercepted while attempting to cross into Afghanistan or Waziristan via Balochistan.
No drones over Quetta: Noted American writer William Pfaff also took up this issue in his Dec 15, 2009, syndicated article ‘Don’t Launch a Missile on a Major Pakistani City.’ ‘Pakistan, as most sensible people know, is in the grip of forces that could tear the country apart if that happened ´ making it the third nation, after Iraq and Afghanistan, to be devastated by the United States, since that fateful day in September 2001 when the so-called war on terror began. The idea is for the United States to bomb Quetta … which is a major Pakistan military base, home of the century-old Command and Staff College inherited from the British Army. The reported American threat is not one of sending drone bombers over this city of three-quarters of a million people, but of missiles as well, meant to kill the Mullah Omar, leading figure in at least one branch of the Taliban, senior al Qaeda figures also supposedly in Quetta…..’
Pakistan will stay here; not the US or NATO: Pfaff highlights the Pakistani concerns on the possible US- NATO departure from Afghanistan in near or mid-term future, saying that soon ‘the Europeans and Americans will depart, just like the U.S retreated from Lebanon in 1983 under Ronald Reagan, after the attack on the troops– barracks in Beirut, and Bill Clinton pulled a 23 thousand-man force out of Somalia after losing the battle of Mogadishu in 1993.’ He also reproduces the theories that most Pakistanis propound and are seized with; after the foreigners leave, Pakistan will find itself once again in the awkward geopolitical and militarily dangerous situation in which nature and the vagaries of man have placed it. Its avowed great enemy is India, with which Pakistan shares a very long eastern border, with Iran to its West, and Afghanistan on its long northwestern frontier. A friendly Afghanistan therefore would offer at least one ‘cold border’ in case if a war breaks out with India.
The American generals seem to be saying to Pakistan: You henceforth will ignore your own national security interests and devote yourself to our interests, whatever the cost to you. You will hand over all of the Taliban leaders and men in your country, and place your army under our strategic control. Otherwise we will bomb your cities. Most Pakistanis fear that Obama new Afghan plan is a way to wreak further havoc in the region and will do fundamental damage to the United States itself as the terror now knows no boundaries.