Media reports quoted a security official in the provincial capital, Peshawar, as saying that an important Arab al Qaeda operative was among those killed in the missile strike. Security sources identified him as Abdullah Azam Al-Saudi, who American intelligence had identified as the main link between al Qaeda’s senior command and the Taliban networks in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). "He was the man coordinating between al Qaeda and Taliban commanders on this side of the border, and also involved in recruiting and training fighters," an unnamed official said.

The missile strike in the NWFP implies that the scope of US engagement in Pakistan has now been altered drastically. While any subsequent missile strikes by the US in NWFP (and in FATA) will severely test the framework of relations with Pakistan, these are indications that high-value targets from the Taliban-al Qaeda combine are holed up in the violence-wracked Frontier. More significantly, however, the drone attack in the Frontier will expectedly augment public uproar against the American presence within Pakistan. Apprehension has been expressed on the extent to which the US can be allowed to operate within Pakistan. "[The US] can come to Hayatabad (in Peshawar) tomorrow to hit a target and will say they have intelligence that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was hiding there," unnamed senior Government and Army officials told Daily Times in a series of interviews reported on November 23. "These attacks should end. They are not stopping al Qaeda attacks, nor will they help Pakistan's campaign against this organisation," one official said.

The US has reportedly carried out more than two dozens aerial strikes in the FATA in 2008. On its part, the Taliban has already indicated that it will avenge the latest missile strike. There could, consequently, be an increase in militant attacks, including suicide bombings and assassinations, in the urban areas not only of the NWFP but also elsewhere in Pakistan. A spokesman for the North Waziristan-based militant leader Hafiz Gul Bahadur warned that his group would carry out attacks outside the FATA if there were any new US attacks: "It has been decided that if there are any drone attacks in our territory after 20 November, we will attack targets in Pakistani territory outside the tribal areas."

On the ground, the NWFP continues to be afflicted by levels of violence that have gradually transformed it into an ungovernable space, as is the adjacent FATA. During 2008 (data till November 21), some 2,002 persons, including 749 civilians, 255 security force (SF) personnel and 998 militants, were killed and at least 1333 others were injured in 2,016 militancy-related incidents, across the NWFP. In comparison, in year 2007, which witnessed the sweeping transformation of the Frontier as a major battleground for radical Islam, at least 1,190 persons, including 459 civilians, 538 militants and 193 SF personnel, lost their lives. The breakdown and chaos in NWFP has been rather swift. In fact, throughout 2006, a comparatively small number of people – 163 – were killed in the province in just about 84 incidents. Significantly, 27 of the 53 suicide attacks in Pakistan in 2008 (till November 21) have occurred in the NWFP. With the exception of April and June, there have been suicide attacks in every single month of 2008. Similarly, in year 2007, 27 of the 56 suicide attacks took place in the NWFP. NWFP Provincial Police Officer Malik Naveed Khan stated on November 20, 2008, that during the preceding 10 months, Police had foiled 75 terrorist attacks and arrested 36 accused involved in these attacks, besides recovering large quantity of explosive materials, 39 explosive jackets, 636 hand grenades/dynamites and 295 rocket launchers.

Within the Frontier, the militancy has gradually become dispersed and the conventional distinctions between settled and tribal zones (of the Province’s 24 Districts, 17 are settled and seven are tribal) have diminished, with the result that the whole Province bears striking resemblance to the FATA. With the trajectory of militancy in NWFP closely linked to the state of play in neighbouring FATA, there is bound to be more focused attention by the U.S. on the former.

Even as violence continues in the Swat District and other locations, the provincial Government has stated that it was ready for a dialogue with the Taliban. The NWFP Government Peace Envoy, Afrasiab Khattak, held a meeting with a jirga (tribal assembly of elders) from Swat Valley in Peshawar on November 18. Haji Inamur Rehman, who led the jirga, reportedly informed the Government that it had the mandate from the Taliban in Swat to negotiate peace with the provincial Government. The Government reportedly told the jirga that it would take part in a dialogue with the militants led by Maulana Fazulullah only if they eschew violence and accept the state’s writ, a precondition that the Taliban will not accept.

The Pakistani state has continually negotiated with the Taliban in NWFP, generally through jirgas. However, the dialogue has failed time and again. Temporary cease-fires have, in fact, allowed the Taliban-al Qaeda combine to regroup and rearm, while the state capacity has gradually diminished in the region. Even with continual military operations in Swat, Dera Ismail Khan, Kohat, Peshawar, Bannu, Hangu, Malakand, etc., the state has not been able to hold the territory regained. The militants are, consequently, able to return with renewed facilities after momentary displacement. One of the fundamental reasons for the state’s inability to hold territory and enforce peace agreements in the Frontier is the lack of a mechanism for governance on the ground. Any regaining of territory by the armed forces has consequently proven transitory, since efforts to hold and sustain territorial gains rely almost exclusively on the presence of the armed forces.

A closer scrutiny of the military operations in the NWFP indicates that Islamabad has not only delayed counter-insurgency action on occasion but also, more importantly, consistently resorted to short-term strategies. In May 2008, for instance, the Government successfully negotiated with the Taliban to keep the strategic Indus Highway open between Peshawar and Kohat. On that occasion, the Government had assured the Taliban that the military would stop operations in Darra Adamkhel and, in return, the Taliban would stop their activities on the stretch of Indus Highway passing through Darra Adamkhel. There was, as a result, no intent or long-term strategy to neutralize the Taliban infrastructure in Darra Adamkhel.

Compounding the problem is a severe deficiency in the fighting capacity of enforcement agencies in the NWFP. It is the Pakistan Army which is the lead agency in the counter-terrorism campaign in FATA and NWFP, backed by the paramilitaries and the Police. In urban areas, the roles are reversed, with the Police and para-militaries piloting CT responses. While the Army is a relatively well equipped force, hamstrung Police forces face a grim challenge of constituting the first line of defence against urban militancy. In the NWFP, the Police struggle with severe shortcomings, according to the National Police Bureau’s Annual Report, 2006, operating under significant constraints including paucity of funds (only 12 per cent of the annual budget is available to meet Police development requirements); shortage of Police strength (50 per cent deficit against sanctioned strength); half of the existing Police Stations lack their own buildings; half of the Districts are without proper Police Lines; less than half of the required/sanctioned authorized transport is available. In attempting to make amends, the Awami National Party-led provincial Government has proposed the creation of an elite police force of 7,500 personnel, which could be deployed on short notice in militancy-affected areas.

Faced with an enduring insurgency, the constrained Police force is demoralized. Hundreds of Police personnel have quit their jobs after being threatened by the Taliban in Swat. A November 13, 2008, report said that approximately 350 policemen have so far resigned from their posts, subsequent to a Taliban threat to either leave their jobs or get ready for "dire consequences." Indications are that this figure may increase as many Police personnel have reportedly refused to work in the violence-affected Swat Valley. The Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws, TNSM) had issued a warning to policemen in Swat in October 2008 to resign from their posts rather than "fight their own people." The militants had "advised the Policemen who quit their jobs to advertise their names in local papers so that they would not be attacked in future. As a result, the local newspapers have been publishing ads on behalf of those who have quit. There have been about 1,200 policemen's names printed in the Swat area." Some 102 policemen have been killed by militants in Swat and its adjoining areas during the past 10 months, according to one estimate. Some were reportedly abducted and later slaughtered by suspected Taliban militants while some of them were said to have committed suicide. Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman in Swat, stated: "We have warned the Policemen a month ago to quit their jobs… Those who have followed our instructions are safe, but those who still stick to their jobs should get ready for the consequences."

An index of the bleak circumstances in the Frontier is visible in the vulnerabilities of the provincial capital, Peshawar. Strategically significant Peshawar hosts the headquarters of the Army’s 11th Corps, the paramilitary Frontier Corps, the Frontier Constabulary and the Police. In June 2008, as the Taliban advanced towards the city, NWFP Police Chief and top administrators warned that, unless the Government took decisive action, Peshawar would fall. These warning, however, do not appear to have secured the desired effect. Peshawar currently faces a grave threat from militants barely five months after a military operation apparently ‘cleared’ them from its outskirts. A month-long operation by the security forces in July 2008 had pushed the militants beyond the capital’s periphery. As has been the case elsewhere, however, the militants have returned in full force and are currently pounding at Peshawar’s doors once again. 

In November alone, there have been 10 terrorism-related incidents in Peshawar. While the Peshawar Airport has been attacked with rockets four times in November, a suicide bomber blew himself up at a packed Qayyum Stadium in the capital, killing four people, including a policeman and three civilians, on November 11. Taliban militants operating in Darra Adamkhel claimed responsibility for the attack and said that senior NWFP minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour was their target. One November 12, a USAID official, heading a project of the FATA Development Authority, was killed along with his driver near the American Club in Peshawar town. Stephen de Vance, the chief of the USAID-funded FATA Livelihood Development Programme, was en route to his office when unidentified attackers ambushed his car at around 9:00 am on the Ataturk Road. Further, on November 13, unidentified militants abducted an Iranian diplomat in Peshawar’s Hayatabad locality after killing his police guard. Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, Third secretary and Commercial Attaché at the Iranian consulate in Peshawar, was yet to be traced at the time of writing. Since September 2008, at least three Afghan officials have reportedly been kidnapped by suspected Taliban militants, including Abdul Khaliq Farahi, the Afghan consul-general in Peshawar. None of them has been recovered so far. Earlier, on August 26, the vehicle of Lynn Tracy, principal officer at the US Consulate in Peshawar, was fired at in the city’s University town. She was unhurt in the attack. There have been three suicide attacks in Peshawar in 2008, in which 58 persons were killed and 108 injured. According to Ismail Khan, a Peshawar-based journalist, from January to the second week of November 2008, there have been 124 reported cases of abduction in the Province, including 60 for ransom.

Subsequent to the spate of high-profile abductions and increased subversion in the provincial capital, the United Nations has increased security levels in Peshawar and ordered its international staff to leave the province. UN sources stated that, following a series of suicide blasts and killing of foreigners, the UN had raised the security level in Peshawar to phase four, adding that all UN projects in Peshawar might be closed. The international staff will be relocated outside the Province and shifted to Islamabad, sources said, adding that only the staff concerned with emergency or security operations would remain in the area.

Faced with a rapidly worsening law and order situation in the capital, the provincial Government ordered security agencies to shoot at sight suspected militants in the areas connecting capital Peshawar with the Khyber Agency, to control terrorist activities and rising incidents of abduction for ransom. Further, the Police have reportedly proposed setting up of a diplomatic enclave in Peshawar, like that of Islamabad, where security can be maximized for offices and residences of foreigners.

According to Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the NWFP, the militants had responded to military operations by "launching pinprick attacks" in Peshawar to "pull the military from the frontline." He said the authorities had failed to respond quickly enough to the militants’ change in tactics, adding "Unfortunately I do not see any action on the security plan. For example, enhancing Police capacity to deal with armed militants is happening in a sporadic, piecemeal fashion." According to journalist Ashfaq Yusufzai, "Not one of Peshawar’s 30 Police Stations stays open after 8 p.m. Police in rural Peshawar have stopped night patrols after a patrol was blown up in a grenade attack on May 29."

The Taliban’s targeting of Peshawar is unsurprising. They have always had a significant presence in the capital and adjacent regions, including the Khyber Agency, Darra Adamkhel, Mohmand Agency, Shabqadar, Michni and Mardan. For decades and under successive regimes at Islamabad, they enjoyed state patronage, leading to a deep consolidation of influence and capacities.

According to "Global Trends 2025: A Transformed World", the fourth unclassified report prepared by the US National Intelligence Council in recent years that takes a long-term view,

There appears to be little in current state policy that can obstruct the emergence of these scenarios, and if current circumstances are any indication, the American projections may crystallize even earlier than anticipated.

[South Asian Intelligence Review]