ISLAMABAD, July 15: The nascent anti-Talibanisation plan approved on June 4 by the National Security Council (NSC) for tribal and settled areas of the NWFP may witness some “structural alterations” following the deadly reaction to the Lal Masjid tragedy in the tribal region and various parts of the province.
“The threats are now more wild and widespread than before the Lal Masjid operation. The NSC plan mostly focussed on South Waziristan and other tribal areas and people like Baitullah Mehsud and the local Taliban. But, now threats are as much severe in the settled areas as these were once in the tribal region,” a high-level official told Dawn on Sunday.
He said the government was facing a tough challenge of rooting out the Taliban with the help of regional coordinators (RCOs) for southern, central and northern districts of the NWFP, adding that security agencies feared more attacks on army troops and law-enforcement personnel across the province.
“We can expect some changes to the NSC plan and its targets as for as the areas with support for Talibanisation are concerned,” the official said.
Taipu Mohammad Khan, the first-ever special home secretary appointed earlier this month to ensure smooth cooperation between the RCOs, interior ministry and security agencies, had landed into a situation never expected by the NSC plan, sources said.
They said the new set-up would find it extremely difficult to achieve anything substantial in the NWFP as the MMA-led provincial government was never in favour of the Lal Masjid operation, a move which was now having severe repercussions for the government. And with the general election coming up, the MMA government was finding it difficult to support the NSC plan despite the fact that Chief Minister Akram Khan Durrani was present in the June 4 meeting of the NSC.
“The NSC plan is more proactive, but now the government may opt for being defensive as well as threatening,” a source said.
He said that sentiments of the people in both the tribal and settled areas had turned against the government after the Lal Masjid operation.
But another official close to the NSC plan said it had been prepared keeping in view the creeping Talibanisation in the settled areas of the NWFP as well. However, he admitted that after the Lal Masjid operation, the NSC plan might be amended or at least priorities redefined.
According to the NSC plan, a regional coordinator would be posted in Dera Ismail Khan to work and coordinate with political agents in North and South Waziristan, besides district coordinating officers (DCOs) in Bannu, D.I. Khan and Tank.
The sources said that the thrust of the new administrative set-up was likely to be now equally shifted towards Swat, where hardliner cleric Mullah Fazlullah has been playing with the writ of the government.
For years Malakand remained a stronghold of the banned Tehrik Nefaz Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM). The organisation received a major setback when its leader Sufi Mohammed took a tribal lashkar of several thousand men to Afghanistan in the aftermath of 9/11 to fight along the side of the Taliban. However, most of these people were killed, and a dejected Sufi Mohammed returned, only to be arrested, and has since then remained in the D.I. Khan prison. In all these years, the TNSM remained a dormant group, but in recent months has re-emerged as a major militant force in the area.
The sources said the government would like to keep Malakand on top of the list of its NSC plan’s targeted areas. But, the question arises if the government could open so many fronts simultaneously.
Under the NSC plan, the government has started deploying unmanned reconnaissance planes and strengthening law-enforcement agencies with advanced equipment in the NWFP, but things have changed a lot over the last few days.
The sources said that another meeting of the NSC was expected soon to devise a new “post-Lal Masjid” strategy towards militants in the volatile tribal region and now dangerous-than-ever settled areas of the NWFP.
