Failure in Pakistan leads to blaming Afghanistan

Washington Times Editorial:

When Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf forged an agreement with the tribal leadership in the northwest border provinces in September 2006, observers in Washington were justly skeptical. Four months after the agreement was made, the concerns that Pakistani territory would become a sanctuary for Taliban insurgents have been realized, and Afghanistan has felt the effects.
A comparison confirms that the level of violence in Afghanistan is up: Armed attacks increased from 1,558 in 2005 to 4,542 in 2006. Suicide attacks also increased, from 27 in 2005 to 139 last year. The upsurge in violence predates the September peace accords, but even though the accords are not solely responsible for the increased violence, it's evident, even in the relatively short four-month span, that the deal has done nothing but exacerbate the situation.
"Pakistan is our partner in the war on terror," Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence last week, but "it is also a major source of Islamic extremism." Mr. Negroponte concluded that "Eliminating the safehaven that the Taliban and other extremists have found in Pakistan's tribal areas is not sufficient to end the insurgency in Afghanistan but it is necessary." While visiting Kabul last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates also noted a "significant increase in cross-border attacks," and that "al Qaeda networks are operating on the Pakistan side."
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But, Pakistan is not willing to take responsibility for the problems being caused by people on its side of the border as this NY Times story makes clear.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shaukat Aziz, acknowledged Wednesday that people sympathetic to the Taliban were active in the frontier regions near the border with Afghanistan. But he insisted that the root of the problem was the Afghan government’s weak authority, not Pakistani support of the Taliban.

“We believe the core of the problem is in Afghanistan,” Mr. Aziz said, in an interview at the World Economic Forum here in Davos.

Mr. Aziz also said three million Afghan refugees were crowded into Quetta, Peshawar and other Pakistani cities close to the 1,700 mile-border between the countries. Despite what he described as stepped-up Pakistani efforts to root out extremists, the refugee population remains a recruiting pool for the Taliban insurgency, Mr. Aziz said. But he dismissed allegations that his country was supporting the militants.

“This notion that Pakistan may be in some way or other supporting these people or giving them safe haven is ridiculous,” he said.

As for suspicions that elements in Pakistan’s intelligence service, the I.S.I., might be acting independently in support of the Taliban, he said, “That’s equally ridiculous.”

“The Pakistani intelligence service is a disciplined service, and they act in line with the government,” Mr. Aziz insisted.

On Sunday, a correspondent for The New York Times, Carlotta Gall, reported that she had found anecdotal evidence in and around Quetta to support charges by Western diplomats and Pakistani opposition figures that the Pakistani intelligence agencies were encouraging the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

While reporting in Quetta, Ms. Gall was assaulted by plainclothes intelligence agents in her hotel room, and her photographer, Akhtar Soomro, was detained. Their computers, notes and cellphones were taken, and since then Pakistani agents have tracked down their sources. Ms. Gall said her visa to report in Pakistan had no restrictions.

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Gall's report was pretty devastating for the Pakistani government and it is not that surprising that their agents tried to rough her up. If you examine their statements closely they are really just saying that it is not official government policy to offer sanctuary to the Taliban. But, as Gall report demonstrates, many of the Taliban fighters are actually Pakistani recruited by the preachers of hate in the mosques, not the Afghan refugees they claim. A significant number of refugees from Afghanistan went home after the overthrow of the Taliban. Perhaps the new refugees they are giving sanctuary to are simply the Taliban that fled after their defeat.