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India-Pakistan
Militants' pact
2015-03-15
[DAWN] CLAIMS that a breakaway faction of the banned TTP, the Jamaatul Ahrar
...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough...
, led by Omar Khalid Khorasani, has rejoined the original umbrella organization, the TTP led by Mullah Fazlullah
...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan...
, and that a third turban outfit, Mangal Bagh
...a former bus driver, now head of the Deobandi bandido group Lashkar-e-Islam and the Terror of Khyber Agency...
's Lashkar-e-Islam
...a group of Islamic bandidos infesting Khyber Agency. It's headed by a former bus driver....
, has also joined forces have come as no surprise. The new pact formalises what had been an informal working arrangement in place for a while, including the sharing of jacket wallahs for each others' operations. Neither is the timing of the announcement particularly surprising. All three groups have come under pressure in their hideouts on the Afghan side of the Pak-Afghan border and attempted to reassemble in the Tirah region of Khyber Agency -- the very region in which the Pakistain military has launched the next phase of the Khyber-I operation. This week, the military has claimed dozens of turban casualties in air strikes in the region and that is expected to be only the start of intense action against bandidos bully boyz there, following on from the push in the flatter terrain of the Bara region late last year.

As ever, in the opaque world that is the frontline fight against militancy, there are several big questions. To begin with, how much cooperation from the Afghan government and security forces -- to stop bandidos bully boyz from fleeing across the border again -- will the Pak state be able to expect? The recent improvement in ties between the Pak government and the security establishment on one side and the Afghan government and intelligence and security forces on the other is the key to obtaining and sustaining Afghan cooperation. It almost certainly includes the quid pro quo of urging the Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table with the Afghan government. It remains to be seen how durable that new, untested compact is. The other question: is Khyber-I going according to plan? The military had always suggested there would a second phase starting this month, but the general experience in military operations here is that the ability to clear and hold is relatively easy as compared to being able to return an area to normality and keep the bandidos bully boyz out after the main phase of the operation is over. Finally, the bandidos bully boyz themselves have proved to be far more resilient and adaptable than is often assumed. Once again, in the face of intense pressure, they have banded together and may seek to survive in enough form to be able to bounce back at a later point. Is there a strategy to prevent that?
Posted by:Fred

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