Pakistan surrenders another area to Taliban

Bill Roggio:

The Pakistani government is preparing to cede the Federally Administered Tribal Agency of Bajaur to the Taliban. Jan Aurakzai, the governor of the Northwest Frontier Province, has informed the media that a 'peace deal' fashioned after the Waziristan Accord is imminent, Dawn reports.

Bajaur has long been an al-Qaeda command and control center. The Taliban and al-Qaeda funnel their northern Afghanistan operations from Bajaur. Afghanistan's Kunar province, which sits just across the border from Bajaur, is one of the most violent provinces in Afghanistan.

Last October, the Pakistani government was just 24 hours from signing an agreement with the 'Pakistani Taliban' of Maulana Faqir Mohamed's Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (or TNSM, which translates to the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Sharia) when airstrikes hit a Taliban training camp in a madrassa Chingai. While the Pakistani government claimed responsibility, this was likely a U.S. Special Operations strike designed to sabotage the deal.

Liaquat Hussain, one of Faqir's lieutenants who ran the Chingai camp, was killed, along with 80 Taliban. Faqir Mohamed narrowly escaped death. Up to five al-Qaeda operatives were believed to have been at the Chingai camp. Intelligence indicated Ayman al-Zawahiri, al-Qaeda's second in command, and Matiur Rehman, a high-ranking leader in al-Qaeda's in Pakistan and operational planner of the failed London plots, may have been in the madrassa. After the airstrike, TNSM, Jamaat-ud-Dawa's, which is just the banned al-Qaeda affiliate Lashkar-e-Taiba only renamed, and the Taliban supporting Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) political party held large protests in Bajaur and throughout the tribal areas and the NWFP.

During a tribal jirga (or council) just days prior to the Chingai airstrike, Faqir Mohamed called “Osama Bin Laden and Mulla Omar 'heroes of the Muslim world' and vowed joint efforts to fight the 'enemies of peace' in Bajaur Agency.” He also lamented the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan....

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Pakistan is either losing or is complicit in the fall of this area to the Taliban. It is a situation that we cannot afford to pretend is not happening. It is the base of our enemy and they and their base must be destroyed. If Pakistan is going to ally with them over us, it has chosen to side with the terrorist and will have to pay the consequences. If it has lost its ability to fight them then we will have to go in there and get them our selves. As long as this area remains a sanctuary for fighters who are coming into Afghanistan, that war will continue. It is time to nip it in the but, to paraphrase Don Knotts. Bill Roggio has been months a head of the mainstream media on events in this area of Pakistan.