NATO commanders demand Pakistan close Taliban sanctuary

Ahmed Rashid 10/06/06

As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) takes command of overall international military operations in Afghanistan, commanders from five NATO countries whose troops have just fought the bloodiest battle with the Taliban since 2001 have asked their governments to get tough with Pakistan for the support and sanctuary that its security services provide the Taliban in the southern province of Balochistan.

The NATO report on Operation Medusa, the largest anti-Taliban set-piece battle that lasted from September 4-17 in the Panjwai district near the southern city of Kandahar, has demonstrated the extent of Taliban logistics capability and the clear involvement of Pakistan's Interservices Intelligence (ISI) in providing it.

However, NATO commanders from the United Kingdom, the United States, Denmark, Canada and the Netherlands are frustrated that even after Pakistani President Pervaiz Musharraf met with US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair last week, Western leaders are declining to call Musharraf's bluff.

"It is time for a ‘either you are with us or against us' delivered bluntly to Musharraf at the highest political level," said one NATO commander. The White House gave Musharraf a similar ultimatum in 2001. "Our boys in southern Afghanistan are hurting because of what is coming out of Quetta," he added, referring to the capital of Balochistan.

In two weeks of heavy fighting in a vineyard region outside of Kandahar, NATO and Afghan forces led by Canadian troops defeated 1,500 well-entrenched Taliban, who had planned to attack Kandahar city, the capital of Afghanistan's south.

NATO officials say they killed a staggering 1,100 Taliban fighters, more than double the amount initially claimed. Hundreds of Taliban reinforcements who crossed over from Quetta – their pick-up trucks not stopped by Pakistani border guards – were destroyed by NATO air and artillery strikes.

NATO captured 160 Taliban, many of them Pakistanis who described in detail the ISI's support to the Taliban. NATO is now mapping the entire Taliban support structure in Balochistan, ranging from ISI-run training camps near Quetta to huge ammo dumps, arrival points for new weapons and meeting places for the Taliban leadership council in the province's capital.

Two training camps for the Taliban are located just outside Quetta, according to NATO and Afghan officers. The Taliban are using hundreds of local madrassas, or Islamic religious schools, to house the fighters and rally them for the mission ahead before sending them to the front.

The madrassas now being listed by NATO are run by the Jamiat-e-Ullema Islam, a political party that governs Balochistan and the North West Frontier Province. The party helped spawn the Taliban in 1994.

"Taliban decision making and its logistics are all inside Pakistan. There are several Taliban shuras (councils) in Quetta, each with a Pakistani officer coordinating it," said Afghan Defense Minister General Rahim Wardak.

An astonishing post-battle intelligence report compiled by NATO and Afghan forces involved in Operation Medusa demonstrates the logistical capability of the Taliban.

During the battle, the Taliban fired an estimated 400,000 rounds of ammunition, 2,000 rocket- propelled grenades and 1,000 mortar shells, which slowly arrived in Panjwai, a district in Kandahar province, from Quetta over the spring months. Ammunition dumps unearthed after the battle showed that the Taliban had stocked over one million rounds in Panjwai.

In Panjwai, the Taliban had also established a training camp to teach guerrillas how to penetrate Kandahar, as well as a separate camp to train suicide bombers and a full surgical field hospital. NATO estimated the cost of Taliban ammunition stocks alone at around $ 5 million. "There is no way the Taliban could have done this on their own without the ISI," said a senior NATO officer.

NATO commanders say that they are now urging their governments to get tough with Musharraf about Quetta, but they admit that action has still not been taken. Next week at NATO headquarters in Brussels, private discussions between the alliance's 26 member countries will start on forging a common position on Pakistan's support for the Taliban and on better protection for NATO troops in Afghanistan.

However, President Bush declined to raise the issue of the Quetta sanctuary when he hosted a tense tripartite dinner with Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Washington, DC on September 28. Western diplomats said Vice President Dick Cheney is adamant about continuing US support for Musharraf without broaching such questions.

Karzai said he did address the topic with the Pakistani leader, much to the chagrin of Musharraf. "I raised in a very clear way the question of terrorist sanctuaries and that no country should rely on extremism as an instrument of policy," said Karzai.

Prime Minister Bair also raised the issue when he met with Musharraf at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence, two days later. Blair demanded that Musharraf arrest Taliban leaders in Quetta including the Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar. Senior Western diplomats in Kabul report that Musharraf replied with "Show me the evidence."

That evidence may be forthcoming when General David Richards, the head of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Lt. General Karl Eikenberry, the head of US forces in Afghanistan, visit Islamabad in coming days.

Richards said his Islamabad trip would be about "developments linked to dealing with the Taliban and its effect in Afghanistan." He said he was "much more optimistic than a month ago" about Pakistan and the military situation in Afghanistan.

Underlying NATO's tough new stance is that if Musharraf refuses to close down the Taliban in Quetta and NATO troops die in larger numbers in Afghanistan, the Taliban camps could become targets for NATO air strikes – although such an extreme decision by NATO member governments is still far away.

Editor's Note: Ahmed Rashid is a journalist and author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia."

Posted October 6, 2006 © Eurasianet