Taliban tighten domination in Swat

Washington Post:

Taliban forces tightened their grip on Pakistan's Swat region Monday and continued resisting the military's efforts to dislodge them from neighboring Buner, bringing a fragile peace accord closer to collapse and the volatile northwest region nearer to full-fledged conflict.

Yet even as the Taliban continued its rampage and rejected the government's latest concession to its demands -- the appointment of Islamic-law judges in Swat -- Pakistan's military leaders clung to hopes for a nonviolent solution, saying that security forces were "still exercising restraint to honor the peace agreement."

Behind this strained hope for a peaceful solution lie an array of factors -- competing military priorities, reluctance to fight fellow Muslims, lack of strong executive leadership and some internal sympathy for the insurgents -- that analysts say have long prevented the Pakistani army from making a full-fledged assault on violent Islamist groups.

Over the past two days, extremists in the northwest have attacked a military convoy, beheaded two soldiers, imposed a curfew and blown up a boys' high school and a police station. Troop reinforcements were sent into Buner on Monday after heavy fighting, and there were reports that the army would imminently launch an attack on Swat, an action that could coincide with a crucial aid-seeking visit to Washington this week by President Asif Ali Zardari, whose government has been criticized by U.S. officials for capitulating to the insurgents.

In the past five years, the army has made periodic moves against various militant strongholds but has frequently pulled back, often amid public anger over bombing raids. Insurgent leaders hold news conferences and spew religious hatred on FM radio stations with no interference.

Even now, despite a blitz of military operations during the past week and a raft of official statements about defending the writ of the state, analysts said it is doubtful the army has the stomach for a sustained fight against Taliban forces if the peace accord does collapse.

"The militants have resolve, determination, focus and ideology. On the other side, I don't see any of those," said Aftab Khan Sherpao, a former interior minister and a member of Parliament who comes from northwest Pakistan. "The army understands the threat from the militants, but they are more permanently worried about India. They are waiting for civilian leadership and direction, and there isn't any."

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I think Sherpao has correctly analyzed the problems. Even under Musharraf there was a lack of leadership on dealing with the Taliban. The willingness to accommodate those seeking their destruction is inexplicable. The ISI may not have informed them of that objective.

The army's problem in Swat is clearly the lack of a counterinsurgency strategy where they take and hold an area an put an adequate force to space ratio in an area to cut off the enemies movement to contact. They are still in whack a mole mode using a bigger hammer, but not cutting off the movement of the moles.