Pakistan's North Waziristan Militant Challenge

June 2, 2011 | 1218 GMT

Summary

A senior Pakistani general responsible for operations in northwest Pakistan denied media
reports on June 1 that the Pakistani military would soon commence military operations in
North Waziristan, an operation the United States has long requested. Pakistan has an
imperative to take out the command and control of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which is
most likely in North Waziristan. STRATFOR has long held that such an operation will
occur. Whether it will be effective is another matter.

Analysis

Pakistani Lt. Gen. Asif Yasin Malik, the commander of the Peshawar-based XI Corps,
denied on June 1 that a military operation in North Waziristan was imminent. The XI Corps
is responsible for operations in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province and the Federally
Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). He instead said the military would mount a full-scale
operation in Kurram, which is just north of North Waziristan, and presumably would help
to cordon militants in the latter agency. Renewed speculation regarding such an operation
in North Waziristan began with a May 30 article that cited anonymous “highly placed”
military sources in Pakistani daily The News, which previously has run similar reports.
Dawn, another daily, quoted anonymous military sources June 1 as saying such an
operation would happen but that it would be primarily focused on al Qaeda, foreign fighters
and their major ally, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).
North Waziristan is the only agency of the tribal badlands straddling Afghanistan and
Pakistan in which Pakistani forces have not yet engaged in any major air or ground
operations. Though a showdown there has been a long time in coming, the Pakistani
military does not want to appear to be bending to American demands. However, given that
the TTP has once again in the last few months demonstrated its ability to attack across
Pakistan, it is now in Pakistan’s national interest to disrupt TTP operations. Just how and
when it will strike, and what effect such a move will have, remain unclear.

Strategic Motivations

According to some, the Pakistani move to expand the counterinsurgency into North
Waziristan resulted from a deal between Pakistan’s civil-military leadership and U.S.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike
Mullen, both of whom were in Islamabad for a short visit late last week. As U.S. officials
claim once again that they have pushed Pakistan into tackling militants, and will probably
continue unmanned aerial vehicle operations, the Pakistani opponents of such an operation
will claim the civilian and military leadership is under the thumb of the Americans. This
could increase militants’ ability to recruit and could attract more groups into the TTP fold.

Pakistan’s challenge is to eliminate its primary militant enemy, the TTP, while retaining
potential assets that allow it to influence events in Afghanistan, like the Haqqani network,
and not pushing neutral militants, like Hafiz Gul Bahadur’s forces, into the arms of the TTP
and its international jihadist allies — all while satisfying U.S. demands to go after
Bahadur’s militants and the Haqqani network. The latter two groups are neutral toward the
Pakistani state. The United States would like Pakistan to attack the Haqqani network, which
is generally in the northern parts of North Waziristan, and Bahadur’s militants, generally
located in the southern parts. Both groups are involved in supporting the Afghan Taliban
insurgency.

Caught between the Americans and jihadists, the Pakistanis face a more difficult situation
than they have faced since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan began in 2001. The killing of
Osama bin Laden demonstrated just how much Pakistan does not know about U.S.
intelligence operations in Pakistan. Meanwhile, militants have been attempting to infiltrate
the intelligence and military services to protect their own and carry out attacks on Pakistani
military targets.

Islamabad’s conflicting statements reflect the Pakistani leadership’s efforts to juggle these
challenges and demands. From the Pakistani point of view, a North Waziristan operation
could reduce pressures from Washington, particularly after the discovery of bin Laden in
Pakistan. Any new Pakistani operations will focus on the TTP, al Qaeda and others that
specifically threaten the Pakistani state rather than the United States’ preferred targets,
however.

The May 23 TTP attack on Pakistani Naval Station Mehran has created a new sense of
public urgency behind plans to go after the militant group’s command and control
capabilities and operational planning. Operations in parts of South Waziristan have caused
these elements of the TTP to spread out across Pakistan. The problem, according to
STRATFOR Pakistani sources, is that intelligence on militant networks and leadership in
North Waziristan is limited, but the core TTP leadership is indeed believed to be based
there.

Pakistani leaders now face a complex challenge in determining how to reduce TTP
capabilities without worsening the insurgency or undermining their gains in other tribal
regions. Assuming Islamabad decides to move in North Waziristan rather than to hunt
down militants across Pakistan, whether the Pakistanis can degrade the TTP leadership in
North Waziristan remains unclear. The TTP has proved resilient in the face of clearing
operations elsewhere in FATA. Moreover, the TTP has a diffuse network of tactical
capabilities across the country, from Karachi to Peshawar, meaning the group might be able
to continue operations regardless of any Pakistani action in North Waziristan.

Tactical Challenges

The rumored operation will take time to prepare and will probably begin with Pakistani
airstrikes. Unlike South Waziristan, which was previously a no-go region for the Pakistani
military, a division of troops already is stationed in North Waziristan, with headquarters in
Miram Shah and brigade-level command centers in Mir Ali, Datta Khel and Razmak. The
scale and scope of operations will dictate whether existing forces will be sufficient or
whether more will need to be moved into position.

The intricate militant landscape in North Waziristan and weak human intelligence
capabilities further complicate matters. Pakistan’s military resources are limited, and it
needs to engage in more precise strikes and targeted, economy-of-force clearing operations
to avoid collateral damage and to conserve its resources.

The Pakistani concept of operations has always been selective, involving the concentration
of forces in key areas and targeting specific groups that are most hostile to the Pakistani
state. The South Waziristan campaign, for example, only encompassed portions of the
district — not the ones near the Afghan border of concern to the United States.? (Efforts to
the north in Swat were more comprehensive.)

The problem is deeper than Pakistan’s selectivity about which groups it targets. Islamabad’s
writ has never truly been enforced in such far-flung tribal areas. Its governance has long
relied on political agents (the political leader of each agency) and arrangements with tribal
elders. The paramilitary Frontier Corps and the other elements that make up the loose
patchwork of security forces in FATA have limited resources and capabilities. Regular
army reinforcements have helped, but after clearing specific areas — often ruthlessly —
they are stuck occupying them. Any movement to a new objective leaves the cleared area
unsecured and vulnerable. As a result, what troops Pakistan has committed remain bogged
down and stretched thin, even though they have only cleared portions of FATA.
Ultimately, Pakistan has yet to settle on lasting political arrangements that allow temporary
military gains to become sustainable, so the situation in already cleared areas will remain
tenuous. Militant factions have continued to carry out attacks in the Waziri areas in South
Waziristan; Tirah Valley in Khyber agency; upper Orakzai, lower Kurram and Safi Tehsil
in Mohmand agency; and parts of Bajaur. Despite often-ruthless tactics, military efforts
have failed to crush the TTP in these districts. This makes major, new clearing and
pacification operations in rugged, mountainous terrain of limited attractiveness despite
security imperatives. Even if the Pakistanis manage to clear certain areas of North
Waziristan, they have yet to demonstrate an adequate political and economic structure to
secure and develop them.

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