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Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander in North Waziristan and considered one
of the ‘good’ guys because he is ostensibly not set on attacking Pakistani
interests, appeared to have laid a trap for the defenceless cadets after being
asked to guarantee their safe passage. While the full details of the kidnapping
have yet to emerge, it seems that Gul Bahadur may have planned to escort the
cadets out of North Waziristan and then have them captured and taken to South
Waziristan and handed over to Baitullah Mehsud, the ‘bad’ Taliban leader against
whom a military operation may be in imminent.
Similarly, Maulvi Nazir, another Taliban leader hailing from South Waziristan
Agency and also believed to be one of the ‘good’ guys because he helped the
state take on Uzbek militants linked to Al Qaeda, has reportedly provided men to
Baitullah to send to Swat to fight the state there. The unholy alliance between
Baitullah Mehsud, Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir makes nonsense of the
theory that it is possible to separate the ‘good’ from the ‘bad’ and take on
just the bad Taliban.
Just as troubling is the possible reason behind the kidnapping of the cadets. It
appears that with the military operation winding down in the Malakand division —
at least the first phase of a full-fledged assault — the army and the government
may be readying to take on Baitullah Mehsud next. The kidnapping then may have
been a provocation to force the state’s hand and cause it to act before it
assembled the requisite forces and resources in the Waziristan agencies.
Baitullah and his cohorts may be calculating that a battle brought forward would
favour them, given that they have had literally years to dig in and build up
their forces for precisely such a fight.
The three phases of Operation Rah-i-Haq in Swat suggest that when the army
scrambles unprepared to deliver a blow to its opponents, the militants are able
to repel the state more easily.There is also the issue of tribal dynamics in the
Waziristan agencies, particularly among the Mehsuds. Baitullah may be the most
powerful of the warlords in the area today, but he has many enemies and some
potential rivals within the Mehsuds. They may come forward eventually to fight
Baitullah as allies of the state, but that process would take time and would be
something that Baitullah clearly would want to head off by picking a fight with
the state while it is on the back foot. |
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