Islamist move out of tribal areas spurred Musharraf move

Washington Times:

Islamist militants, cited by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in his declaration of a state of emergency, are for the first time threatening the government outside their stronghold in the tribal areas along the Afghan border.

In the first two days of the emergency, security forces have been busier rounding up Supreme Court judges and the president's political opponents in the capital than going after the militants.

But insofar as the crisis was provoked by the growing strength of the extremists, it was their new offensive in the Swat Valley — a scenic area known as the Switzerland of Pakistan — that prodded Gen. Musharraf to drastic action.

Fighting began in the former princely kingdom north of Islamabad about two weeks ago when a suicide bomber linked to a group sometimes described as "the Pakistani Taliban" attacked a truck in the valley's main town, Mingora, killing 20 soldiers and wounding 30.

The military responded with a major operation against the militants, sending helicopter gunships against targets throughout the valley and surrounding the headquarters of the group's leader, Maulana Fazlullah.

Fighting since then has killed as many as 100 militants and 30 to 50 security forces, despite two short-lived cease-fires. In one of the most gruesome incidents, militants publicly beheaded six captured soldiers, a police officer and seven civilians "and then paraded [the bodies] in front of local residents to scare them," said Badshah Gul Wazir, home secretary of the North-West Frontier Province.

The newspaper Dawn said the militants control three of the valley's seven districts with a total population of 600,000 mainly poor people.

The conflict in Swat is especially troubling to the government because it marks the first time the government's authority has been challenged in North-West Frontier Province outside the ungovernable tribal areas.

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The situation in Pakistan has been deteriorating for the past year or more. If Musharraf is responding to that deterioration and not his political situation then it is about time. As things have gotten better in Afghanistan they have gotten worse in the tribal areas of Pakistan and now they appear to have spread beyond that region and Pakistan is going to have to stop the Islamist before the situation gets worse.

Meanwhile the AP reports that lawyers engaged in mob violence in resistance to the Musharraf decrees. On the political front Musharraf has been dealing with a revolt of the lawyers as much as he has with the Taliban in the tribal areas.

Stanley Kurtz believes that an Islamist coup is still possible in Pakistan. Opinion Journal thinks Musharraf was mainly concerned about the lawyers and the courts. I think it was probably a combination of the two. Musharraf probably thinks that if the court ruled against his being head of the army and President too, that the country could not wage an effective war against the Islamist. At this point it is hard to imagine how that fight would take place without Musharraf. Certainly the lawyers who oppose him do not seem inclined or even interested in dealing with the Islamist threat.

Bill Roggio believes that the move has weakened rather than strengthened Musharraf. I think it is too early to tell yet. We probably will not know for a few weeks..