The US military’s hope of a year ago that a surge in troop numbers inside Afghanistan would turn the tide in the guerrilla war is fading fast. The Taliban have extended their grip in the north and west of the country. The one option left to America and its allies is to try to force the Pakistan army to act decisively against the Taliban in Pakistan. But it is not going to happen. Most Pakistani soldiers are happy to fight the Pakistan Taliban, but of their Afghan equivalents they view them as freedom fighters combating a foreign occupation.
A second reason why the Pakistan military is unlikely to attack the Taliban is that we may be seeing the opening moves in the endgame in Afghanistan. If the Pakistani army plays its cards right, then the outcome of any successful peace negotiations would be a power-sharing government in Kabul in which the Taliban would play an important role. Pakistan, with its strong influence over the Taliban, would be established as a regional power.
Pakistan highlighted the hold it has over the US and NATO forces in Afghanistan by stopping their supply trucks from crossing the Afghan frontier, in retaliation for US helicopters making an attack on the Pakistani side of the border and killing three Pakistani soldiers.
One almost comic aspect of Pakistan shutting down NATO’s supply line through the Khyber pass is that the Taliban themselves may not be too pleased to see the ban go on too long. –The Taliban receives a large part of the $1,500 protection money paid by trucking companies for every one of the 1,000 or so trucks entering Afghanistan each day with supplies for US and NATO forces. This type of extortion may be as important to the Taliban’s revenues as the heroin trade.
[The Independent]
