By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Asia Times
"ISLAMABAD - After a month of operations against militants in the South Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, Pakistan's military establishment realizes it is chasing shadows; the adversary has simply melted into the vastness of the inhospitable surrounding territory.
Unlike in previous operations in other troubled tribal areas, though, there is unlikely to be any peace agreement. The militants, headed by the Pakistani Taliban - the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) - are bent on a long-term insurgency against the security apparatus, which they now see as heretic as the United States forces in Afghanistan.....
Militants are concerned over the close collaboration between the ISI and the US. The ISI has established a Counter-Terrorism (CT) cell, which works strictly in coordination with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Central Intelligence Agency against the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Pakistan. The CT is completely segregated from the ISI's top hierarchy.
Background interviews with several detainees from ISI centers suggest they were interrogated in closed rooms by Pakistanis with headphones seemingly being guided in the questions they asked. Asia Times Online has been told that the recent attacks on ISI offices in Peshawar and Lahore were undertaken by militants who had been interrogated jointly by Americans and Pakistanis.
The Pakistan army is looking for familiar options under which it battles the militants in their strongholds of South Waziristan and North Waziristan, and then strikes ceasefire deals. This is no longer likely to work."
No comments:
Post a Comment