SPY EYES

Last week’s failed suicide attack on Mullah Nazir in his Wana stronghold in South Waziristan Agency could be the precursor to a violent blood feud in the Tribal Areas and highlights the vulnerability of the so-called good Taliban, according to information available with Pakistan Today.

Nazir heads the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe in SWA, and despite his affiliation with al Qada and the Taliban, has upheld a negotiated truce with the government that rules out attacks on the Pakistani military, even as his forces remain committed to the anti-ISAF insurgency in Afghanistan.

Over the last few years, he has emerged as the most prominent in a bunch of commanders bolstered by the military to confront the uprising in the Tribal Areas, assuming the proverbial lynchpin status in the official counter insurgency (COIN) strategy.

Though different accounts of the attack itself, and subsequent developments, have reached the press, it is widely believed that the hit was orchestrated by rival Mehsud tribesmen dominating the TTP, including its leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

The Wana grand jirga’s Saturday decision to expel all Mehsuds from Wazir areas by December 5 confirms the suspicion. “The burden of proof is now on the Mehsuds,” says Rasheed Safi, head of news at Radio Burraq that transmits news in the Tribal Areas. “But for now they will have to leave their sanctuary in Wana, or blood will flow”.

Yet Nazir is an enigmatic leader whose views have not always confirmed with dominant currents in the area, and whose freewheeling and sometimes self-contradictory positions have drawn enemies from all around, including the four-party shura-e-murakeba that includes the Pakistani Taliban and the Haqqanis. He has survived several assassination attempts, including drone strikes, and his list of enemies remains extensive. And despite the straightforward narrative confirming Mehsud guilt, conspiracy theories abound, including possible divide and conquer tactics central to the official COIN campaign.

Usual suspects: The Wazir-Mehsud rivalry is a part of the complicated web of tribal conflicts as old as the rugged, unconquerable hills of Waziristan, yet the two have been known to join hands in typical Pashtun chivalry whenever a foreign force has upset the regional balance. And it was no different when a confluence of foreign and internal forces – NATO invasion in Afghanistan, Pakistani military action, refugee influx – forged the TTP in 2007-08, an uncomfortable umbrella alliance brokered by al Qaeda, with Mehsuds at the top.

And it wasn’t long before differences emerged, especially as cracks developed between Mullah Omer’s and al Qaeda’s visions with regard to the overall insurgency – the former wishing to restrict it to the NATO invasion inside Afghanistan and the other with a more globalist agenda, with Pakistan among the prime targets.

The good Taliban label comes from this time when the Pakistani intelligence was able to leverage Nazir’s and Omer’s reluctance to engage in the Pakistani frontier and initiate a squabble between the formation’s top ranks.

Nazir subsequently cooperated with the military to expel Uzbek fighters from his area, who had begun a ruthless campaign against Pakistan after its leader, Tahir Yudashev, issued a fatwa regarding prioritising attacks on the Pakistani military.

Uzbeks formed a crucial part of the al Qaeda network that infiltrated the Tribal Areas with hopes of expanding the war deeper into Pakistan, and never forgave Nazir for the 300-odd massacred.

Like the Mehsuds, they have had reasonable cause against Nazir, and may well have tried to take him out. If true, these Uzbeks have just deepened the cleavage within prominent factions of the insurgency. Mullah Omer has called for cessation of attacks on the Pakistani military since 2008, yet the Mehsuds in the TTP have leaned towards al Qaeda’s demands of deeper incursions inside Pakistan.

Omer’s Quetta shura has been restricted in its criticism, though, since it depends on ‘personnel’ from the agencies for its own operations in Afghanistan.“It is a very complicated situation,” said Raheemullah Yousafzai, a veteran journalist and noted expert on the insurgency. Nazir’s refusal to comply with al Qaeda demands made him a natural target, he adds, and the move against the foreigners was bound to generate ill will.

Nazir was one of the commanders that viewed al Qaeda as guests as opposed to their strangely accepted status as ideological mentors in the tribal belt. He repeatedly complained of deepening al Qaeda influence to Mullah Dadullah, Mullah Omer’s deputy, early in the insurgency. Yet al Qaeda succeeded in financing a conglomerate of splinter groups and deepened penetration in Pakistan. The TTP, supposedly loyal to Mullah Omer and al Qaeda, actually negated the former’s orders of concentrating solely on Afghanistan. It could well be, sources tell Pakistan Today, that al Qaeda engineered the hit on Nazir to drag his group into the main Pakistani theatre of war, something the Wazirs have resisted so far.

There are also hints that the military might be involved.

Breakdown of the attack: “It’s a strange sequence of events. Much is unclear, just like an Ignatius novel,” says a retired army officer familiar with COIN strategy. A little boy, or a teenager, either carried a wheel barrow, or rode a motorcycle loaded with explosives into Nazir’s SUV, just when he was outside taking a phone call, maybe surrounded by bodyguards, but most probably still visible enough, and clearly not in the vehicle. He got a scratch in the leg, and did not need airlifting to Pindi CHM like another, smaller Taliban commander Taasil Khan earlier from Shakai in SWA. In strictly military terms, he says, the “info” is not sufficient to prove whether it was an assassination attempt or a “warning shot”.

The more counterinsurgency becomes “intel intensive”, the more the official machinery positions pockets against one another, he adds, the classic divide and conquer doctrine. Unconfirmed reports also indicate that three TTP members were arrested on suspicion shortly after the attack and the following gunfight in Wana’s main Rustam Bazaar.

“We cannot confirm this development, but sources indicate all three were let loose, obviously with Nazir’s approval,” says Saifullah Mahsud, Director at the FATA research centre, an Islamabad based think tank specialising in the Tribal Areas.

“If that is true, then perhaps it is more complicated than simply Mehsud vendetta. And I’m pretty sure he knows who is behind it all.”Still, things remain far from clear. “Intelligence agencies around the world have been known to employ such tactics, pitting one against the other, but the matter of the three released, even if true, could be for a number of reasons,” says Raheemullah Yousafzai. “It is more likely an internal issue.”

For now, the jirga’s word is final and, guilty or not, the Mehsuds must leave.And whether it was the rival tribe, or foreign militants, or the wider al Qaeda network, or even the government itself that was responsible, last week’s development is certain to mark a new chapter in the tribal insurgency.

If the TTP has violated the oath and come after him, the tribal compulsion of badal will mandate war. If al Qaeda has bankrolled another external incursion, the wazirs will again join the government to flush out foreigners. And if there is official hand, the blowback is bound to affect COIN efforts.

Whichever party was behind the attack, it has most likely succeeded in luring Mullah Nazir back to Pakistan’s war, however much he avoided local confrontation, even sheltering rival Mehsuds despite government disapproval. As these former guests leave, all parties concerned will prepare for more war.

“If the Mehsuds don’t leave there will be blood,” says Rasheed, and the “TTP will be affected. Most will just make it to Bannu and DI Khan. The IDP situation will deteriorate. Winter is setting in. TTP logistics and coordination will be disrupted. Things will get worse”.