A Border Playbill: Militant Actors on the Afghan-Pakistani Frontier

[Teaser:]In a region without governance,insurgents rely on medieval arrangements to focus the fighteast and west.

Summary

The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan --the focus of much attention in the U.S./NATO campaign against al Qaeda and the Taliban --is a unique region unto itself. The control of territory here is much more Byzantine than it is elsewhere, based on intricate understandings that are very local and fluid.These informal interests supersede those of far-away governments in Kabul and Islamabad and pay little heed to an official line drawn on a map.The players in the region are also fragmented, without clear, hierarchical control over their turf, but they still seem to be making inroads.

Analysis

Over the course of the U.S./NATO mission in Afghanistan, much attention has been paid to the Afghan-Pakistani border, a <link nid="125298">very porous demarcation line</link> transited at many points by hundreds if not thousands of people every day.The border area reaches up to the Hindu Kush in the north and southwest into the arid Balochistan plateau. The border itself is poorly defined, cutting through mountain chains and ungoverned territory out of the reach of Islamabad and Kabul. In Pakistan, a large portion of the territory along the border (the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA) enjoys special autonomous status, in no small part because Islamabad has never been able to effectively extend its writ into this area and has, until just recently, never had the strategic need to do so.

The actual line that separates Afghanistan from Pakistan (the Durand line) was drawn by Great Britainin 1893 to form the border between British-owned India and Russia’s sphere of influence in Afghanistan. When Pakistan was partitioned from India, it inherited the Durand line and viewed the mountainous territory as a buffer zone from Afghanistan. However,Afghanistan has never formally recognized the line as an administrative borderand, over the ages, has consideredit not so much a buffer zone as an invasion route. Before the Durand line, local warlords based in what is now Afghanistan would come down from the mountains to invade the IndusRiver valley in what then belonged to India.In fact, the Mughal dynasty that ruled India from approximately 1526 to 1707 originated inAfghanistan, as did its predecessor, the Sultanate of Delhi.

[<INSERT GRAPHIC: Afghan Terrain -- ]

Additionally, the ethnicity of the population along the border is mostly Pashtun, a largely tribal-based society that shares connections across the border and has a history that far predates any national partitions.The <link nid="145821">modern state system of territorial control and boundaries simply does not work here</link>.Instead, the control of territory is much more Byzantine, based on intricate understandings that are very local and fluid.Successfully navigating in such a region requires an intimate knowledge of ever-changing local politics. The Afghan-Pakistani border area, then, can be seen as its own region, with allegiances and interests that supersede those of far-away, centralized governments in Kabul and Islamabad and pay little heed to an official line drawn on a map.

[<INSERT GRAPHIC: Afghan Pakistan Ethnicity -- ]

During the 1979-1989 Soviet war in Afghanistan, Pakistan used the fluidity of the border region to its advantage.Along with the CIA and the Saudi General Intelligence Presidency (GIP), the Pakistanis used the FATA as a staging ground for conducting operations in Afghanistan against the Soviets, running people and supplies over a border that the Soviets were unable to control.Toward the end of the war,Pakistan started seeing competition from Arab-led international militants for influence in Afghanistanwhen the Soviets pulled out. These Arab fighters established relations with local Afghan fighters and became what is now al Qaeda prime. Following the 9/11 attacks and the U.S./NATO invasion of Afghanistan, al Qaeda pulled back into the borderland between Afghanistan and Pakistan and has been hunkered down there ever since. The arrival of al Qaeda on Pakistan’s frontier turned the tables on Islamabad, making the borderland more of a liability than an asset.

The United States was quick to enlist Pakistan as an ally in its war against al Qaeda and its supporters in the border area.After the U.S./NATO invasion of Afghanistan, and part of a deal with the United States, then-Pakistani President Gen. PervezMusharraf disassociated Pakistan from the Afghan Taliban and later banned a number of Pakistani militant groups that it had been supporting. However, with deep contacts in the country that it has cultivated over decades of war, Pakistan has (and remains to have) the best networks for understanding the realities on the ground in Afghanistan. With little hope or capability of establishing a human intelligence network of its own in the area, the United States has relied on Pakistan’s <link nid="121434">Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI)</link> for intelligence on the region and the people who inhabit it.The ISI, in turn, relies on its network of jihadist forces that it created to give the region some sense of cohesion and project power inAfghanistan.

Major Militant Players

This [ISI?] networkis led by various militant commanders in Afghanistan and Pakistanwho have carved out territorial niches, many of which overlap political boundaries and each other.For the sake of simplicity, we have broken militants operating along the border down into three main groups: the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, <link nid="153462">whose leadership is currently in flux</link>, and the Afghan Taliban Regional Command in Eastern Afghanistan, led by the Haqqani family.Hundreds of other groups and individuals operate along the border, but few of them are able to claim any significant territorial control or play a meaningful role in the fighting.They contribute fighters and materiel when they can, and occasionally are credited for attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan.But the three main groups are the most powerful when it comes to influencing events in the border region and, as such, are the focus of Western and Pakistani military efforts.

The [map?] below is a very general representation of the situation on the ground, based on information from Afghan, Pakistani and Western military sources. Territorial control in the border region is difficult to illustrate, since such sources view the terrain and define control in terms of political boundaries when such boundaries, in reality, are not so clear cut.

[<INSERT GRAPHIC: Afghan Militant Control - ]

Before discussing the various groups that operate in the Afghan-Pakistani border region, we should outline the geographical differencesalong the border between north and south. The northern border area is defined by difficult-to-access mountain ranges that have made this area almost impossible for any kind of central government to control. Conversely, the southern border is a flat plateau, making up the province of Balochistan on the Pakistan side [and what?] on the Afghan side.

The northern border is dominated by the FATA on the Pakistan side. Islamabad has very little presence in the FATA, and while the area belongs to Pakistan in name, much of it is under the de facto control of local tribal leaders. The <link nid="149533">Pakistani military has managed to carve out an area of control in South Waziristan</link>, but it remains to be seen how effectively the military can control Pakistani Taliban elements in other FATA districts like North Waziristan, Orakzai, Kurram, Khyber, Mohmand and Bajaur. As a general rule, the Pakistani Taliban are stronger the farther west one goes in northern Pakistan.The farther east one goes, the more the central government has a presence.

This devolution of power to the tribal leaders in the FATA allows for much more unmonitored cross-border traffic through the mountains. This fluidity allows militants fighting Western forces in eastern Afghanistan to work much more closely with militants in the FATA. In a region where few roads exist, inhabitants are very comfortable negotiating mountain paths that were created over centuries of use.Whether they are large enough for a motorized vehicle or barely wide enough for a human on foot, these primitive arteries inextricably link the FATA to its neighboring provinces in Afghanistan.It is unreasonable to expect the Pakistani military to patrol all of these paths -- even if they could effectively do that, locals would find new routes and establish new paths to continue their movements between the two countries. The unregulated, unmonitored flow of goods and people across the Afghan-Pakistani border in the north means that counterinsurgency efforts on either side of the border are going to be frustrated by the cross-border support of the insurgent network.

The dominant militant group in the FATA is the TTP, which is a largely indigenous force that has been involved in an insurgency against Islamabad since 2002-2003[can we pick just one of these years?]. The group also boasts a large number of foreign fighters from the Arabian peninsula and central Asia (e.g.,Uzbekistan). Opposite the FATA is the Afghan Taliban Regional Command in eastern Afghanistan, led by the Haqqani network. ThisHaqqani network[extended tribal family?]has a significant presence in the FATA that supports operations against Western troops in Afghanistan.

The TTP emerged as a result of the relocation of al Qaeda from Afghanistaninto northwest Pakistan,Islamabad’s alignment with Washington in the war against the jihadists and Pakistan’s inability to balance its commitment to the United Stateswithits need to maintain influence in Afghanistan.[The TTP?] has carried out terrorist attacks inPakistan’s core and has been escalating the frequency of its attacks since the security operation against militants holed up in Islamabad’s Red Mosque in 2007. In recent months it has spread its presence down to Sindh province and Pakistan’s strategic city of Karachi.

In October 2009, the Pakistani military launched a <link nid="147452">ground operation in South Waziristan</link> to deny the TTP sanctuary and the capability to train and deploy fighters into Pakistan’s core.The success of this mission remains to be seen as the long-term challenges of actually holding territory and controlling and preventing militant forces from returning become all-too obvious.The rugged geography and distance from Islamabad (exacerbated by poor infrastructure) will certainly play to the advantage of the local [insurgents?].

Militant commanders such as Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulvi Nazir operate in the FATA (North and South Waziristan respectively), drawing support from foreign fighters and providing support to Afghan Taliban elements west of the border. At times, the Pakistani military has tried to reach neutrality agreements with such commanders in an effort to hive off support from beneath the TTP. Although <link nid="141497">they have not always been successful</link>, efforts to manage these actors are currently bearing fruit and the neutrality understandings seem to be holding.

[<INSERT GRAPHIC: FATA/NWFP - ]

To the southwest in Pakistan is the province of Balochistan, which isfar different from the FATA in the sense that it is a full-fledged province of Pakistan with multiple layers of governance including a strong federal presence. However, in northeast Balochistan province (known as the Pashtun corridor), a large Pashtun population links the province ethnically to the FATA and neighboring Afghanistan. This section of the province does provide limited opportunities to militant groups operating in the border region.

However, the Afghan Taliban in southern Afghanistan, adjacent to Balochistan, do not rely as much on the border area as Taliban elements to the north do. Southern Afghanistan, particularly theprovince of Kandahar,just across the border fromQuetta (the provincial capital of Balochistan), is the birthplace of the Afghan Taliban movement and remains its stronghold. Mullah Omar’s Taliban movement originally began in Kandahar in response to the lawlessness brought about under Soviet rule and the resulting civil war after the Soviets left.The Taliban eventually expanded to rule 90 percent of Afghanistan but were pushed back to the south after the U.S./NATO invasion.

Unlike in northern Afghanistan, where Western forces are constantly applying pressure to Taliban forces, the Taliban continue to control large swaths of territoryin the south. When foreign forces do conduct <link nid="153663">offensives in the area</link>,Taliban forces can very easily melt into the local countryside. In eastern Afghanistan, the Taliban relyon the border operationally as the various groups but up against the border[not sure what you’re trying to say here], but in southern Afghanistan the border has less strategic value for the Afghan Taliban.For one thing, the Taliban continue to control territory in the south that Western military forces have been unable to wrest away. Thus they are able to operate much more openly there and do not have the same need to escape across a border when the pressure is applied. Also, the Taliban’s territorial control in southern Afghanistan does not extend to the border.The ethnic map of Afghanistan showing the presence of Pashtun populations in the south demonstrates the effective reach of Taliban militants,[how so? this is unclear]which does not go all the way to the border.[delete. we’ve already said this]. For the Afghan Taliban, fleeing across the border is a long and harrowing trip to a region of Pakistan kept under close eye by the Pakistani military -- far different from the situation in the north

The Afghan Taliban, however, do maintain a presence in Pakistan.Their political leadership is believed to be somewhere in the greater Quetta area, where they have sought sanctuary fromWestern military forces in Afghanistan.They do not directly cause violence in Pakistan, though, and since they are in Balochistan, an official Pakistaniprovince, they are much more immune to the kind of U.S.-operated unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) strikes that are conducted against militants in the FATA.Afghan Taliban leaders in Balochistan do not cross back and forth over the border but remain much more sedentary, blending in with fellow ethnic Pashtuns and staying away from border areas where Western and Afghan forces have much more freedom to target them.

The largest regional command structure of Taliban under Mullah Omar is led by the Haqqani family in eastern Afghanistan (referred to here[do you mean this is what we’re calling it in this analysis or this is what it is commonly known as?] as the Afghan Taliban Command Region East). The Haqqani family has been a powerful force in eastern Afghanistansince well before the Taliban started their rise to power.The Haqqani family also teamed up with al Qaeda and foreign militants in the region before the Taliban did.They assimilated under Mullah Omar’s rule when the Taliban took over in the 1990s, but because of the group’s special status, the Haqqani family was able to maintain a large degree of autonomy in conducting its operations.The Haqqani network also has a significant presence in the FATA -- especially in North Waziristan -- and has frequently been <link nid="153543">the target of U.S. coordinated UAV strikes</link> there.

A Fluid Insurgency

None of these groups is monolithic. Just as the border region is fragmented in ways that make it difficult for central governments to control it, so are itsmain insurgent groups, which do not have clear, hierarchical control over their territories.Rather, they are engaged in amedievalweb of allegiances in which various factions are either united against a common enemy or quarreling over territorial control.

In Pakistan, we saw a <link nid="143687">tumultuous struggle over leadership of the TTP</link> after its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, was killed by suspected U.S.-operated UAV.We also saw [TTP?]commanders like Maulvi Nazir Ahmad reach verbal[this can be written, too. do you mean ‘oral’?] neutrality agreements with the Pakistani governmentto make it easier for the Pakistani military to move into South Waziristan during its offensive there.Similarly, in Afghanistan, we saw regional commanders continue to carry out <link nid="152402">suicide bombings in civilian areas</link> despite calls from Mullah Omar to limit civilian casualties by <link nid="143066">requiring approval for such acts</link>.The Afghan Taliban appear to be unified because they face a common enemy, the United States and NATO in Afghanistan,just as the various elements of the Pakistani Taliban seem to be in concert in their fight against Islamabad.But these groups must be pragmatic in order to survive in a geography that prevents any single power from dominating it completely --and this requires shifting alliances quickly and often, depending onwho offers the most benefit for the group at any given point.[this is what we mean by ‘fluid,’ right? I didn’t want to just say fluid again. We need to more precisely describe what we mean by that.]