In Swat, No "Savvy" Counter-Insurgency

By Steve Hynd

David Ignatius has just returned from a trip to Pakistan entirely stage-managed by the Pakistani military and military intelligence directorate and has proceeded to spout that military's talking points in print and on screen. The military's motive is a simple one: have a prominent Villager shill their tall tale that they're really, truly a staunch ally in the War On Terror (TM) so that the money keeps flowing and the hard questions don't get asked by the VSP set.

But Ignatius' story of glowing counter-insurgency success in Swat is challenged by other accounts from the region - like that of International Rescue's Anna Husarska:

The tragedy of more than 2 million people being displaced in less than two months may have vanished from the headlines, but the civilian drama continues. If there is less attention to their needs, it's partly because it's still hard for anyone other than the armed forces or a native Swati to reach most of the district north of Mingora. The army can take foreign journalists on periodic tours of the "cleared" areas in the south but rarely in the north, where the situation remains uncertain. One thing is obvious: Beyond Mingora, the Swat Valley is still an insecure place.

The Pakistanis themselves have concerns for the collateral damage that the offensive has caused: A visit by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan resulted in a strongly worded report about mass graves and extrajudicial "revenge" killings. And last week, the Pakistani daily Dawn and others reported that a 10-minute video apparently showing Pakistani soldiers beating men detained in anti-militant operations had surfaced on the Internet. The army is investigating.

If the restrictions caused by emergency army administration -- such as curfews and checkpoints -- are a nuisance and add risks for civilians, anger against the militants is rising too. The displaced return to areas promised to be "cleared" of militants, only to find it may not be so. People fear that if they are seen during daytime (from the hills where the militants tend to hide) having contact with any army or government personnel, the Taliban will come down at night to exact a heavy price on them.

Far from being a "Savvy" counter-insurgency campaign, Swat is what it was always slated to be: a heavy-handed punitary expedition which will turn into another round of whack-a-mole in due course. Next, up South Waziristan, where the Mehsud tribe of deceased Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud is being targeted and where Ignatius tells us "about 80,000 noncombatants have left, leaving an estimated 10,000 to 20,000 hard-core fighters." What Ignatius fails to mention in his puff piece is that a rival group led by Mullah Nazeer has just had it's peace accord with the Pakistani military reaffirmed in advance of the assault. While the Mehsud tribe is a core segment of the Pakistani Taliban's strength, Nazeer is a commander of the Afghan Taliban who switched sides in the conflict between the Pakistani central government and the TTP but remains committed to fighting US troops in Afghanistan. More whack-a-mole in which the illusion of Pakistan as a staunch ally will be preserved at the expense of civilian lives and spun by shills like Ignatius.