Editor's Foreword

Pakistan
Democratically elected President Asif Ali Zardari
(co-chair of the Pakistan People’s Party) completed
his first year in office in September 2009. But Zardari’s
popularity had declined due to growing economic
and security problems and weak leadership. General
Ashfaq Kayani, who replaced Pervez Musharraf as
Chief of Army Staff in November 2007, continued
to play a dominant but discreet role in the affairs of
the country amid widening policy differences with
Zardari. Following the army’s moves to scotch the
transfer of the ISI to civilian control in July 2008,
and ensure the restoration of Supreme Court Chief
Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry in March
2009, in mid October it expressed concerns over the
Zardari-supported US Enhanced Partnership with
Pakistan Act of 2009 (the Kerry–Lugar Act). The act’s
conditions on ensuring civilian control of the army
and counter-terrorism were perceived, not only
by the army but also by influential sections of the
public and the opposition parties, as intrusive and
an infringement of Pakistani sovereignty.
War against the Taliban
The spread of Islamist militancy and terrorism from
the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA)
bordering Afghanistan to the adjoining areas of
the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and
to Pakistan’s heartland of South Punjab poses a
growing challenge. Washington expressed concern
over the rise of attacks in Afghanistan by Afghan
Taliban fighters, attributed largely to their use of
Pakistan’s tribal areas as a sanctuary from which to
launch incursions, while the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban
(TTP or Pakistan Taliban) poses a growing threat to
Pakistan’s own national security.
Although Pakistan had deployed 120,000 Army
and Frontier Corps troops to the border regions
they were, until recently, unable to effectively
counter the Afghan and Pakistan Taliban militants.
The beleaguered provincial government of
NWFP signed an agreement on 16 February 2009
with Sufi Mohammed, a pro-Taliban leader of the
outlawed Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
militant group, allowing the imposition of sharia
law in the Swat Valley and Malakand Division
(which comprises a third of the NWFP), in return
for a ceasefire by the TTP. But the Taliban militants
refused to disarm and in April expanded their
control over parts of Buner, adjacent to Swat, only
some 100km northwest of Islamabad.
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Under pressure from the US, Islamabad reversed
its policy. On 28 April Pakistani troops began a major
military offensive with air support against the TTP
in Malakand Division, beginning with Lower Dir
District and then Buner and Swat. On 1 July security
forces captured the town of Shah Dheri, the last
Taliban stronghold in the Swat Valley. Some 1,600
TTP and other militants were reportedly killed in
this two-month operation, which also led to an estimated
2 million civilians leaving their homes. Sufi
Mohammed and his two sons were arrested on 26
July in Peshawar, but no TTP leaders were killed or
captured.
The army announced in early June that it was
shifting its offensive against the Pakistan Taliban and
al-Qaeda to the South Waziristan region of FATA,
dominated by the Mehsud tribe and TTP leader
Baitullah Mehsud. The army deployed around 30,000
soldiers, some withdrawn from its eastern sector in
Kashmir, along with the Frontier Corps, while the
number of Taliban militants was variously estimated
at 10,000–20,000, including al-Qaeda-linked Uzbek
and Arab fighters.
In early August, Baitullah Mehsud was killed by
a US drone attack; the TTP then appointed as leader
Hakimullah Mehsud, Baitullah’s spokesman and TTP
commander for the Khyber, Orakzai and Kurram
Agencies of South Waziristan. Following fixed- and
rotary-wing air-strikes, an army ground offensive
began on 17 October. By early November, the security
forces had captured Hakimullah Mehsud’s hometown
of Kotkai as well as Sherwangi, and nearly 500
militants were reported killed. As in the Swat Valley,
the operations caused large numbers of civilians to
flee their homes.
It remains to be seen how successful the security
forces’ operations will be in South Waziristan, amidst
stiff resistance from the Pakistan Taliban, and what
impact these operations will have on morale. Previous
offensives and peace deals in South Waziristan have
had limited impact. The ongoing South Waziristan
operations were expected to be far more difficult and
protracted than those in Swat, due to difficult terrain
and the onset of winter. Meanwhile, the army ruled
out launching military operations against Taliban
fighters in North Waziristan, dominated by the Wazir
tribes, by pledging to honour the 17 February 2008
peace accord signed with tribal leaders.
A number of terrorist attacks, the majority by the
TTP, were carried out in retaliation for the ongoing
military operations in Swat and South Waziristan.
South and
Central Asia