The Pakistani government signs a little-noticed agreement with Baitullah Mahsud, the chieftain of the Mahsud tribe in South Waziristan. Waziristan is in the tribal region of Pakistan near the Afghanistan border, and numerous media accounts suggest that Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaeda leaders may be hiding out there. The deal, signed in the town of Sararogha and known as the Sararogha peace pact, prohibits forces in South Waziristan led by Abdullah Mahsud, another member of the same tribe as Baitullah Mahsud, from attacking the Pakistani army and giving shelter to foreign terrorists. However, it does not prevent these forces from attacking US troops across the border in Afghanistan. It also does not require these forces to surrender or register foreign terrorists in Waziristan. Abdullah Mahsud is a wanted fugitive in Pakistan and has pledged his loyalty to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. But as part of the deal his forces are even given some money to repay debts owed to al-Qaeda-linked foreign militants. As a result of this deal, the Pakistan army soon leaves South Waziristan entirely. A similar deal will be made with North Waziristan in September 2006 (see September 5, 2006). The area becomes a Taliban base to attack US and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan. The number of Taliban attacks there will rise from 1,600 in 2005 to more than 5,000 in 2006. [Asia Times, 5/4/2005; Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 433] Abdullah Mahsud was held by the US in the Guantanamo prison from December 2001 to March 2004 (see March 2004). In July 2007, renewed fighting between the Pakistani army and tribal militants will cause the Waziristan truce to collapse (see July 11-Late July, 2007). He will blow himself up to avoid capture a few days after the truce ends. [New York Times, 7/25/2007] The CIA will later claim that Baitullah Mahsud was involved in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. [Washington Post, 1/18/2008]
June 15, 2005: Taliban Leader Says Bin Laden Still Alive, Mullah Omar Still in Charge of Taliban
Mullah Akhter Mohammed Osmani, a senior Taliban commander, gives an interview on Pakistani television, and says Osama bin Laden is in good health and Mullah Omar remains in direct command of the Taliban. [Reuters, 6/18/2005] Several days later, US ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad will criticize Pakistan, pointing out that if a TV station could get in contact with a top Taliban leader, Pakistani intelligence should be able to find them too (see June 18, 2005).
July 28, 2005: Article: ISI Is Funding Taliban Training Camps, Giving Them New Weapons
The Los Angeles Times reports that Taliban forces are being trained in Pakistan’s tribal border region with support from Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI. It is believed that the Pakistani ISI has made more sophisticated technology available to the Taliban in recent months, including the ability to construct and detonate bombs at long distance using cordless phones to transmit the detonation signals. Pakistan officially denies these charges. However, Lt. Sayed Anwar, acting head of Afghanistan’s counter-terrorism department, says: “Pakistan is lying. We have very correct reports from their areas. We have our intelligence agents inside Pakistan’s border as well.… They say they are friends of Americans, and yet they order these people to kill Americans.” Anwar said that intelligence agents operating in Pakistan and captured prisoners describe an extensive network of militant training camps in areas of the North Waziristan tribal region. He alleges there are at least seven camps there which are closed to outsiders and guarded by Pakistani troops. Zulfiqar Ali, a Pakistani journalist working for the Los Angeles Times, was able to sneak into one of the camps and saw armed militants, some as young as 13, undergoing ideological orientation and weapons training. Sources say at least 13 militant camps had been reactivated in the month of May. The camps are allegedly funded and supplied by the ISI. Lt. Naqibullah Nooristani, an operations commander for Afghan troops fighting with US soldiers, says the Taliban have been resurgent recently because they are receiving improved training and equipment in Pakistan. [Los Angeles Times, 7/28/2005]
August 18, 2005: Taliban Rebound in Afghanistan with ISI Help
Knight Ridder reports, “Nearly four years after a US-led military intervention toppled them from power, the Taliban has re-emerged as a potent threat to stability in Afghanistan. Though it’s a far cry from the mass movement that overran most of the country in the 1990s, today’s Taliban is fighting a guerrilla war with new weapons, including portable anti-aircraft missiles, and equipment bought with cash sent through Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network, according to Afghan and Western officials.… The Taliban is now a disparate assemblage of radical groups estimated to number several thousand, far fewer than when it was in power before November 2001. The fighters operate in small cells that occasionally come together for specific missions. They’re unable to hold territory or defeat coalition troops.… The Taliban insurgents have adopted some of the terrorist tactics that their Iraqi counterparts have used to stoke popular anger at the Iraqi government and the US military. They’ve stalled reconstruction and fomented sectarian tensions in a country that remains mired in poverty and corruption, illegal drugs and ethnic and political hatred.” Most of the original top leaders were never captured. Some who were briefly held and then released, such as former Defense Minister Mullah Obaidullah Akhund (see Early January 2002), are part of the resurgence. Forty-four US soldiers have been killed in the last six months. Afghan and Western officials claim that the Taliban continues to be supported by Pakistan’s ISI. Pakistan “seeks a weak government in [Afghanistan] that it can influence.” It is claimed that the Taliban are allowed to maintain training camps and arms depots just across the border from Pakistan. [Knight Ridder, 8/18/2005]
2006: Taliban and Al-Qaeda Increase Control over Pakistan’s Tribal Region, Killing Over 120 Local Opponents
Over the course of 2006, the Taliban and al-Qaeda are able to increase their control over the Pakistani tribal regions where both groups are based. More than 120 tribal elders who oppose them are executed during the year. Al-Qaeda feels so secure that its media production arm, As-Sahab, greatly increases its output, releasing 58 audio and videotapes, which is three times as many as in 2005. Militant groups are particularly secure in the region of Waziristan. The Pakistani government made a deal with militants in South Waziristan in 2005 (see February 7, 2005), which still holds, and makes a similar deal with militants in North Waziristan in September 2006 (see September 5, 2006). [Rashid, 2008, pp. 278]
January 26, 2006: Pakistan’s Support for Resurgent Taliban Persists, Newspaper Says
A New York Times investigation along the Afghan-Pakistan border finds not-so-hidden evidence of continued Pakistani support for the growing Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are said to be using a network of religious political parties to attract and then pressure young men into joining the jihad in Afghanistan or in Kashmir. The agencies are believed to be preparing for the day when NATO troops leave the country and hope to re-install a pro-Pakistan government in Kabul. [New York Times, 1/21/2006]
February 2006: Pakistani President Again Given List of Taliban Leaders Living in Pakistan, Again Takes No Action
In 2003, Afghan President Hamid Karzai presented Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf with a list of Taliban leaders living openly in Pakistan, but Musharraf took no action in response (see April 22, 2003). In February 2006, Karzai and Musharraf meet again, in Islamabad, Pakistan, and Karzai again gives Musharraf a list of Taliban leaders living in Pakistan. Amrullah Saleh, head of Afghanistan’s intelligence service, is also at the meeting, and will later say, “It was a target list—locations, training camps, telephone numbers, and everything.” Musharraf responds by giving Karzai a report of the Indian government funding rebels in the Pakistani province of Baluchistan through Afghanistan. Western intelligence officials say India is funding these rebels, but not through Afghanistan. Musharraf again takes no action against the Taliban leaders living in his country. [PBS Frontline, 10/3/2006; Rashid, 2008, pp. 286]
April 28, 2006: US Still Doesn’t List Taliban as Terrorist Group
The State Department’s latest annual Country Reports on Terrorism does not list the Taliban as a terrorist group. In fact, according to the Council on Foreign Relations, the Taliban have never been designated as a terrorist group by the US, Britain, European Union, or any other major Western powers. Governments the US accuses of being sponsors of terrorism, such as Iran, are on the list, but the Taliban has never been listed despite its well-known connection to al-Qaeda. One Afghan analyst says that there is a political motive behind this double standard. The Afghan government has reached out to former members of the Taliban to broaden its support and, “You can’t call them ‘terrorists’ and at the same time reconcile with them.” [Christian Science Monitor, 5/2/2006]
May 2, 2006: Taliban Leaders Said to Be Living Openly in Pakistani Border City with Pakistani Government Assistance
The Christian Science Monitor reports: “Taliban leaders strut openly around Quetta, Pakistan, where they are provided with offices and government-issued weapons authorization cards; Pakistani army officers are detailed to Taliban training camps; and Pakistani border guards constantly wave self-proclaimed Taliban through checkpoints into Afghanistan.” A Monitor reporter who lives in Kandahar, Afghanistan, notes that the result is that people there “have reached an astonishing conclusion: The United States must be in league with the Taliban… In other words, in a stunning irony, much of this city, the Taliban’s former stronghold, is disgusted with the Americans not because of their Western culture, but because of their apparent complicity with Islamist extremists.” [Christian Science Monitor, 5/2/2006] CNN will similarly report in September 2006 that Taliban head Mullah Omar and most other top Taliban leaders are living in Quetta (see September 12, 2006).
July 9, 2006: Joint US, NATO, and Afghan Report Reveals ISI Is Paying and Training Taliban to Fight in Afghanistan, but US Takes No Action
In June 2006, the US, NATO, and Afghanistan’s intelligence agency compile a secret report on the Taliban. The report is discussed on July 9 at a private meeting of officials from Western countries and Afghanistan, chaired by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. The report goes further than any previous report in describing the Pakistani government’s involvement in supporting the Taliban. It states, “ISI operatives reportedly pay a significant number of Taliban living/ operating in both Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight.… A large number of those fighting are doing so under duress as a result of pressure from the ISI. The insurgency cannot survive without its sanctuary in Pakistan, which provides freedom of movement, communications for command and control, and a secure environment for collaboration with foreign extremist groups. The sanctuary of Pakistan provides a seemingly endless supply of potential new recruits for the insurgency.” The report also states that at least four of the Taliban’s top leaders are living in Pakistan. But despite the US involvement in creating the report, US diplomacy generally remains in denial about Pakistan’s double dealing. President Bush not only fails to successfully pressure Pakistan on the issue, but even continues to praise Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The report is not leaked to the press at the time. [Rashid, 2008, pp. 367-368] In September 2006, when Pakistan announces a deal with militants in the tribal region of Waziristan, the heart of al-Qaeda’s safe haven, Bush publicly supports the deal (see September 5, 2006 and September 7, 2006).
