Taliban to jump from frying pan to Afghanistan?

Bill Roggio:

Senior al Qaeda and Afghan Taliban leaders are reported to have met with Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud to advise him to move his group's operations into Afghanistan and halt attacks against the Pakistani state.

Several meetings were said to have been held last week after an 11-man delegation of al Qaeda and Taliban heavy hitters arrived in Waziristan to deliver a request from Mullah Omar, the Amir al Mumineen, or the leader of the faithful in Pakistan and Afghanistan, according to a report in The Nation.

The Taliban dispatched Sirajuddin Haqqani, the powerful military commander of the Haqqani Network, and Abdul Hakeem Sharaee and Mir Ahmad Jan Hashemi, two senior deputies of Mullah Abdullah Zakir, the Taliban's senior-most military commander in southern Afghanistan who was released from Guantanamo Bay.

Al Qaeda sent Abu Yahya Al Libi, one of al Qaeda's senior ideologues and a representative of the religious committee, and Abdul Haq Turkistani, the leader of the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Party, an al Qaeda-linked group that is made up of Uighurs who fight the Chinese government. Abdul Haq serves on al Qaeda's Shura Majlis, or executive council.

The joint Taliban and al Qaeda delegation reportedly advised Baitullah to halt the Pakistani Taliban's attacks against the military and government and to focus his energy in Afghanistan. The leaders believe Baitullah's terror attacks against the Pakistani state are putting undue pressure on the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and threaten to damage the overall Taliban movement.

The Taliban and al Qaeda leadership are concerned that even a limited Pakistani military offensive in the tribal areas will put their training camps and safe houses throughout the border regions at risk as the Afghan Taliban is gearing up for a major fight with Coalition and Afghan forces.

This strategy would be a gift to the US which could focus its superior fire power on massed Taliban fighters in Afghanistan. I suspect that the biggest regret the US has about this meeting is that they did not find out about in time to launch some Hellfire missiles at it. Roggio does say that the US launched at least three strikes during the meetings.

There is also the potential of a false assumption that the movement would halt the Pakistan momentum against the Taliban movement. I am not sure it would and I think the real motive might be to protect the al Qaeda fighters and their bosses who would be exposed by either the Pakistan army advance or any attempt to go back to Afghanistan. Bin Laden and Zawahiri can't afford the movement.

Roggio's report is worth reading in full.

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