Reports that Afghanistan shared intelligence with Pakistan on the presence of Taliban leadership and training bases in Pakistan adds evidence to support recent TRC analyses that Taliban cadres remain ensconced and are building in strength in Pakistan.
The AP report offers compelling details of Afghanistan?s intelligence on the Taliban presence in Pakistan, noting not only that the Taliban?s supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, and its head of operations in southern Afghanistan, Mullah Dadullah, are believed to be hiding and operating in Pakistan, but also that about 150 suspects ?including senior and second-tier Taliban commanders? are also there. Further, in addition to a Taliban presence along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a senior Afghan counterterrorism official, according to the Associated Press believes that Taliban elements are living in Quetta, Peshawar, and Karachi. Further, Afghan officials highlight the presence of training camps to teach bomb making, weapons handling, and suicide bombing in those three cities and in Waziristan. Further, Afghan officials allude to a common belief among observers that the Taliban continues to receive aid from sympathetic Pakistani intelligence elements.
In response, Pakistan?s President Pervez Musharraf defended his country?s counterterrorism efforts against al Qaeda and Taliban elements and discounted some of the Afghan claims of a Taliban presence in Pakistan. As noted in earlier TRC analyses, Afghanistan and the US have expressed frustration with what is perceived as the Musharraf government?s halting crackdown on militant Islamist elements in Pakistan. President George Bush is scheduled to visit Pakistan this week, and observers believe he is likely to address these concerns and urge Musharraf to do more to combat Islamist militants.
Any changes in Pakistan?s counterterrorism operations following Bush?s visit may be an indicator of the status and strength of the Pakistan-US relationship and the degree of pressure applied by the US. The Musharraf government remains in a delicate political vice, and it remains to be seen to what threshold of forceful confrontation with the Islamist militants Musharraf is willing and capable of approaching. The near-term following the Bush visit should give a good indication of these thresholds and indicators of contemporary counterterrorism strategies and operations in Pakistan.
