Taliban 'Mini-State' In Pakistan?

Think Tank Says Musharraf's Policies Have Led To Increased Afghan Attacks

(CBS/AP)  Peace deals between Islamic militants and Pakistan's government have created a virtual Taliban mini-state near Afghanistan, giving militants a "free hand" to recruit, train and arm for cross-border attacks, a think tank reported Monday.

The International Crisis Group (ICG) accused Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government of resorting to "appeasement" of pro-Taliban fighters after poorly planned military operations in North and South Waziristan failed and only fueled more militancy.

The government denied the allegation, but a U.S. military official in Afghanistan confirmed that cross-border attacks had surged this summer and fall, amid the bloodiest violence since the ouster of the Taliban regime in late 2001 for hosting al Qaeda.

CBS News reporter Farhan Bokhari says the report also urges the U.S. government to press Musharraf to take tougher action against the militants on his side of the border.

The report, titled "Pakistan's tribal areas: Appeasing the militants", comes at a crucial time for General Musharraf, as he continues efforts to reconcile views of his country’s harshly anti-U.S. Islamic extremists and more moderate politicians that he claims to support, Bokhari says.

Western diplomats have warned that the mounting Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan is chipping away at Musharraf's credentials with the U.S. and its other allies.

“Many people now ask themselves if Musharraf can really be what he claims — a bulwark against Islamic extremists,” one senior European diplomat in Islamabad told CBS News, on the condition that he would not be named.

"Because that (situation in Afghanistan) has slipped so rapidly this year, there are increasing doubts about Pakistan's support," he added.

CBS NEWS Consultant Jere Van Dyk, who is based in Afghanistan, says, "The attacks are getting worse... President Ahmad Karzai (of Afghanistan)... is so distraught that he actually cried, talking about the bombings."

Among its recommendations, the ICG says the Bush administration should press General Musharraf's government to publish monthly figures, put out by NATO, of cross-border incursions from the Pakistani side, Bokhari says.

Close to 4,000 people, mostly militants, have been killed in Afghanistan this year, threatening the Western-backed project to reconstruct Afghanistan and build a democracy.

"Using the region to regroup, reorganize and rearm, they (Taliban and foreign militants) are launching increasingly severe cross-border attacks on Afghan and international military personnel, with the support and active involvement of Pakistani militants," the Brussels-based think tank said in a report.

The ICG report said Pakistan's army had "virtually retreated to the barracks" in North Waziristan, giving pro-Taliban elements "a free hand to recruit train and arm," which also posed a serious threat to Pakistan's own security.

Government policy had allowed militants "to establish a virtual mini-Taliban-style state," it said, citing reports of pro-Taliban militants attacking music, video and CD stores, closing barber shops, imposing taxes and establishing courts to impose summary justice.

The group called on the government to expand the rule of law in Pakistan's tribal regions and extend civil and political rights to counteract extremism and militancy.

Arbab Mohammed Arif Khan, secretary for law and order in Pakistan's tribal regions, denied the Taliban were launching attacks or running a "parallel administration" in North Waziristan, and described the September peace agreement — inked after a June cease-fire — as an "important breakthrough."

"There are no camps or centers where terrorists are being trained in the tribal areas," he told reporters in the northwestern city of Peshawar.

A senior tribal elder in North Waziristan said it was unclear if more foreign militants had gravitated toward the region since the deal, but confirmed to The Associated Press that pro-Taliban elements had gained stature, undermining traditional tribal leaders.

In a sign of growing Taliban influence, tribesmen were approaching their leaders in the towns of Miran Shah and Mir Ali to settle land and money disputes, and pro-Taliban religious students were helping to direct the traffic, said the elder, who requested anonymity because he had been threatened by militants for meeting government leaders.

Pakistan is a key U.S. anti-terror ally and has nabbed about 700 al Qaeda suspects over the past five years. It says its army, which has lost hundreds of men fighting Islamic militants, still patrols the Afghan border and does all it can to stop militant infiltration.

However, since the peace deal, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Paul Fitzpatrick said U.S. and Afghan security posts along the eastern border with Pakistan had seen a spike in attacks from 17 in May, to 50 in August and 57 in October — a more than threefold increase. Most of the attacks were in Paktika province, which lies opposite North and South Waziristan.

Attacks leveled off to about one a day in November, possibly because of the winter weather settling in, Fitzpatrick said.

Fitzpatrick said the data were not conclusive but that the increase could have been influenced by the North Waziristan peace deal or by U.S. military operations forcing more militants to operate close to the Pakistan border.

[Syndicate]

Anyone that critizers Gen. Pervez Musharraf simply does not understand pakistan. about half the population has adopted western life the other half is ultra conservative Islamisist who hate western culture. Whats a dictator to do? Pakistan has nuclear weapons. I suppose they could nuke the tribal region. I don't think Musharif cares for those who have tried to assinate him. You can't send in the army since its about half the country. a small group of soldiers sent in would either defect or be killed. Obviously by opening lines of communication with your adversarie you are better able to infiltrate their group. I think thier plan is to talk peace and wage war.

[alphaa10-2009]

patriotic9 said, "We all are paying the price of BUSH's stupidity and his STUPID,PSYCHOTIC CHRISTIAN IDEOLOGY..."

---

Plenty of Christians in both word and deed understand the hypocrisy of certain Bush boosters using the word "Christian" to lend credibility to their delusions. But you would do well not to contribute to their damage-- inadvertently helping them-- by lumping all Christians with the so-called Christian right.

Christianity is not synonymous with Bush or his boosters and cannot be appropriated for anybody's political campaign, left or right. To link the two is not only a mistake, but it pits one Christian against the other on the basis of what may be party affiliation. Not surprisingly, the tactic of "divide and conquer" is widely used by conspirators ranging from Karl Rove to the Iraq insurgency to attack their enemies.
_

[bushrocks1]

Would I send my son to this war? You might ask would I send him to World War II? Or Vietnam? Maybe you would distinguish those conflicts and whether you would send your son to fight in them. But that question is misdirected in a very important way: I can't command my son to go to war. He has to make that choice. So the better question would be: would I volunteer to fight in Iraq, WW II, Vietnam? Would I volunteer to fight in any war? Respond if drafted? I don%u2019t know. I'm not equivocating, only addressing that it is a hypothetical. To a hypothetical, I can answer, sure I'd fight. But I have nightmares of battle (from my past life as a Jacobite). So how do I feel toward those who do volunteer? Impressed and maturely knowing that many things go into their decision. But I do strongly believe that a country that can't find those men is doomed. The fact that we can find them is one reason why I say there is no failure in Iraq. Objectively, I also believe it for other reasons. An attempt to establish democracy in the Middle East is a bold, brilliant, noble effort, facing a high chance of failure. That's why I greatly respect and admire those who have made the attempt--the Bush administration. They have been resolute, something I have not seen in my lifetime. They may not succeed, for reasons outside their control or fault: traitors on the home front. Now those traitors have occupied the high ground. Yet... we're still in Iraq; the President hasn%u2019t been impeached. Why?...I'm waiting.

[edjohn66]

CBS News seems to be pulling bushrocks1's posts off when people complain about him/her. I've done it a few times; if we all do it whenever we see that same blasted post repeated over and over again, s/he might get the hint and stop cluttering up the discussion pages.

[mjv2944]

mjlewis6

Cheneys 50 billion figure is probably his cut from Halliburton and the rest of the contractors in Iraq. I would not trust Pakistan and its leadership any further than I could throw the building I'm sitting in. Drug money is cash, and their all involved in it. Taliban has nothing to do with religion, only killing and power.

[annabanana-1]

It is clear we cannot afford two more years of this maladministration. America's only safety rests in impeachment.

[jjreding-2009]

The US and its allies are going to be in this region for potentially decades. Remember the Afghan/Soviet war that lasted somewhere in the vicinity of ten years? And yet W had to invade Iraq rather than focus on this area - which is the REAL front on the 'war on terror'. There was no terrorism in Iraq before 20 March 2003 - but it's again on the rise in Afghanistan and rampant in Iraq. I guess this is the way Democracy gets spread nowadays. [e-mail]

[patriotic9]

We all are paying the price of BUSH's stupidity and his STUPID,PSYCHOTIC CHRISTIAN IDEOLOGY.Osama been forgotten escaped from TORA BORA because we didn't have enough troops on the ground(Read the book THE AMERICAN SOLDIER)Because Bush wanted to save troops for IRAQ DEPLOYMENT which had nothing to do with 9/11 to help the 2ND COMING OF CHRIST.OSAMA BEEN FORGOTTEN slipped into Pakistan and from there where he went nobody knows.Iraq invasion has turned one of the MOST SECULAR COUNTRIES in the MIDDLE EAST into a RADICAL ISLAMIC STATE(now very close to be a part of an ISLAMIC EMPIRE from IRAN in the EAST to LEBANON in the WEST under those RADICAL AYATOALLAHs who consider us the GREATEST SATAN)formed by our tax dollars and our thousands of soldiers' lives.Now we have a terrible situation.OSAMA BEEN FORGOTTEN is free,North Korea has built Nukes which she will definately sell to OSAMA BEEN FORGOTTEN as they have built em for business reason and we have lost our thousands of soldiers' lives by the hands of those who don't have NAVY,AIR FORCE,ARMY or MARINE to remove a SECULAR SADDAM whose foreing minister was a CATHOLIC and had females in his cabinet and brought a RADICAL ISLAMIST named MALIKI who is taking our TAX PAYED MONEY on the name of REBUILDING IRAQ to form an EXTREMIST ISLAMIC EMPIRE.IF we don't stop the involvement of NON-SENSE CHRISTIANITY into our politics whose false hood is obvious as a bright sun,USA will be doomed.

[dargay]

yet another attempt by misguided Westeners to sabotage peace and development in Pakistan. All these westerners want is to see violence, believing wrongly that somehow that violence will defeat terror. Extremism and terror are boosted by conflict, why cant you folks understand that much?

[bluestardad]

If we ask these guys they will give us bin Laden. They already visited Texas to work out an Oil deal!