Pakistan and al Qaeda

Pakistan and Al Qaeda

On Friday, September 8, The Wall Street Journal published an important article entitled: Pakistan Prioritizes Its Battle at U.S. expense.

In that article, it reports that Pakistan is ending its offensives against militants in Pakistan’s Northwest areas. As I have blogged before, Pakistan and its President Musharraf, do not control large parts of Pakistan.

The Pakistan government is ending a three year campagn Islamic militans in Waziristan. The government set free hundreds of prisoners and granted amnesty to others, including some with links to al Qaeda. Advance outposts have been abandoned to tribal leaders including a number to the Pashtun tribe which made up the Taliban. Waziristan borders the Paktia and Khost provinces of Afghanistan where there is intense Taliban activity.

In short, Pakistan has pulled its soldiers out of the area and have turned over key areas to the Pashtun tribe that constitutes much of the Taliban.

Pakistan is moving its soldiers into the Baluchistan area. The Baluchistan area borders both Souther Afghanistan and and Iran. Baluchistan is a haven for separatists and is in rebellion after their leader Akbar Khan Bugtiwas killed by Pakistani security forces.

Baluchistan is the largest in size of the Pakistani provincs and contains 40% of the country’s natural gas resources. Despite having 40% of the gas, they get the use of about 12% and want more There are about 6 million people in Baluchistan or about 4% of the country’s population.

The capital of Baluchistan is Quetta.. Baluchistan has the country’s only deep water Gwadar and there is a strong central government presence in that city.

Thirty percent of Baluchistan is made up of the Pashtun tribes. The people of this Persian oriented tribe can be found in both southern Iran (the Iranian province is called Baluchestan and in Pakistan where the province is called Baluchistan. This tribal people speak Baluchi which has Persian similarities. The tribes in both Southern Iran and Pakistan are Sunnis whereas most of the rest of Iran is Shiite.

The Taliban are Sunnis and Pashtun and Baluchis are very supportive of the Taliban.

So what does it all mean. The new controllers of the borders of Paktia and Khost are Taliban or have strong Taliban sympathies. They won’t be keeping the Taliban out and will open the door and welcome them back after incursions into Afghanistan. We have lost much of the support of Pakistan who is fighting to regain more control over their own southern provinces.

Harley Dad