Cracking the Taliban in Waziristan

NY Times:

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The area, South Waziristan, presents the toughest challenge for Pakistan in its fight to curb its growing insurgency. It is home to Baitullah Mehsud, Pakistan’s enemy No. 1, who leads the Taliban here and has engineered dozens of suicide bombings in recent years.

Mr. Mehsud now has thousands of fighters entrenched in mountain terrain that is nearly impossible for conventional armies to navigate, and past efforts to capture him, most recently last year, have failed.

What is more, Pakistan is fighting the Taliban in several areas already and has committed 22,000 troops to its campaign in the valley, called Swat. While military officials say troop strength is not a problem, more forces will be needed to hold newly taken areas, which have gone unpatrolled for years.

“South Waziristan will be a very hard nut to crack,” said Talat Masood, a military analyst and retired Pakistani general. “It is the mother of all problems.”

“It’s here that the real battle for the soul of Pakistan will be fought,” he said.

Mr. Mehsud has often hidden in plain sight — even holding well-attended news conferences — fueling suspicions that the government has not been serious about killing or capturing him.

But this time is different, analysts and officials say. The military is buoyed by a level of public support and political consensus that it never had before. In the Swat Valley last year, timidity, half measures and limited patrols left the military bogged down in more than a year of fighting. It finally agreed to cede the area to the Taliban in February.

After the Taliban took yet another district, the military finally fought back last month, displacing millions of civilians, but also putting the Taliban on the defensive.

In Waziristan, the challenge is similar, if much harder. A succession of peace deals over the years have allowed Mr. Mehsud and his supporters to dig themselves securely into some of the most rugged terrain in the country.

Virtually the only pressure on Mr. Mehsud and his supporters and allies, which include elements of Al Qaeda, has been applied by missile strikes by remotely piloted American drones.

But in recent weeks, Pakistan has started quietly applying pressure, bombing suspected hide-outs in three areas, strikes that a United States Defense Department official called the beginning of the next phase of the campaign against the Taliban.

On Monday, Pakistan’s Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, flew over the region and said Mr. Mehsud “must be eliminated.” The army has choked off roads. A heavy equipment dealer from the area said his company had not been able to buy diesel for three weeks.

“We’re shaping the environment,” said a senior Pakistani military official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to give details about operations. “Choking the routes. Control of exit and entrance. Regulating the movement. Checking.”

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That is how Israel defeated the Intifada. You have to have enough force to dominate the real estate and cut off the enemy's movement to contact. If you find an area of resistance you hit it with overwhelming force. That is something Pakistan has rarely done in the past, but the army appears to be catching on. They need to go in in force and control all movement.