Pakistan masses troops for attack on Mehsud

Times:

Pakistan was mobilising troops and artillery today to launch a massive offensive against Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, in his mountain stronghold of South Waziristan — also believed to be the hiding place of Osama bin Laden.

Military officials told The Times that the Government had ordered the attack and the military was pounding Mr Mehsud’s territory with heavy artillery and airstrikes and negotiating alliances with rival tribal leaders in preparation for a ground assault.

They also said that the army — already fighting the Taleban in Swat and several other parts of northwestern Pakistan — was engaged in its biggest military operation since the 1971 war that split Pakistan and created Bangladesh.

The army has given no schedule for the new attack, but locals reported seeing troop columns moving towards South Waziristan. Analysts say that they expect the army to capitalise on its high levels of public support and launch its offensive within the next few weeks. “For the last few days, thousands of security forces with reinforcements of tanks and artillery are being shifted there,” one local intelligence official said. “It’s the first time in history we have seen and heard about such a big military movement into South Waziristan.”

Zahiruddin Khan, 25, a shop owner in the town of Tank, just outside South Waziristan, said he had seen army convoys heading towards the region and many families fleeing in the opposite direction in the past few days.

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Jeremy Page adds:

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Anyone who has observed Pakistan since 2001 has to be acutely aware of the army’s technical limitations, of South Waziristan’s deeply inhospitable terrain and of the militants’ resilience. They will also be mindful that Pakistan has long drawn a distinction between good and bad militants, helping the US to kill or capture foreigners, while shielding locals it considers to be potential future assets.

There is no doubt that Pakistan now considers Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taleban leader, to be a bad militant as he has boasted of his responsibility for a spate of suicide bombings in the past few weeks. The worry for the US is that once the Pakistani Army kills or captures him it will withdraw from South Waziristan, as it does not see the other militants in the region to be a threat to Pakistan.

That would waste an opportunity not just to stamp out Taleban incursions into Afghanistan, but also to establish central government control over South Waziristan for the first time since Pakistan’s independence in 1947.

I think the previous episodes have been marked by a lack of will on the part of the army and some of the troops. That has not been a problem in the current campaign. They do need to make sure they have an adequate force to space ratio as well as good force protection tactics. Both have been weaknesses in the past.