Zainuddin’s utility seems to have been more in his potential to isolate Baitullah in the Mehsud tribe and nationally rather than actually fight him. —AP/File photo

HOW do you kill a militant twice? You miss the first time. And if you want to kill him thrice, you miss the second time too.

South Waziristan is soon to be a theatre of war, Operation Rah-i-Nijaat pending to flush out Baitullah Mehsud from his lair. But right now it appears to be more the theatre of the absurd.

Is Qari Hussain, ustad-i-fidayeen, dead or not? And what about Mullah Sangeen Zadran? Did the drone strikes take out either of the two after the Americans targeted a funeral of another local militant commander, killing over 80? And for that matter was it really a funeral for Khoze Wali or for someone else, or even a funeral at all?

Much, if not most, of the confusion over the goings-on in South Waziristan stems from the lack of reliable, independently verifiable information from the area. We know that drones constantly circling above occasionally fire missiles. But the areas hit are immediately sealed off by locals, militants, call them what you will, and so the information that trickles out in the immediate aftermath tends to be unreliable and tainted. Rumour quickly becomes news and ‘news’ quickly spreads across the globe, making headlines and causing hearts to skip a beat.

So it was this week with the apparently stunningly successful strike at the heart of the Baitullah Mehsud network. But as the dust began to settle, the success began to diminish. In the initial strikes, Khoze Wali was killed. Because he belonged to the same sub-tribe as Baitullah Mehsud, the Shabikhel tribe, his importance was elevated, though in fact he was only a mid-, if not lower-, level commander.

As a result his funeral became a must-watch event for the deadly eyes in the sky. Senior militant leaders were ‘expected’ to be in attendance. Maybe even Baitullah would show up. In the end, several militant commanders were killed in the attack on the funeral, but none of a senior level.

Qari Hussain and Mullah Sangeen Zadran ‘survived’, or weren’t at the site to begin with. Qari who? Mullah who? Right. Sit down for a minute and take a deep breath.

Qari Hussain Mehsud is a key militant leader. He’s known as ustad-i-fidayeen, loosely interpreted as the trainer of suicide bombers, though, strictly speaking, in fidayeen attacks death is not the purpose (as is the case with suicide bombers) just very likely given the nature of the attack (think the attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team and the Manawan police training academy in Lahore). Qari Hussain was supposedly first ‘killed’ in Operation Zalzala in South Waziristan in January 2008 when his training camps were attacked, but resurfaced days after the army repeated the claim in May 2008 to mock his ‘killers’.

In a 40-minute propaganda CD released by Hussain in Peshawar in January, boys and young men trained in Hussain’s camps claimed responsibility for some of the most devastating suicide bombings in recent times, including the attack on the FIA centre in Lahore and the twin bombing of a bus filled with ISI personnel and of a military garrison in Pindi. And for those who could understand the anthems playing in the background, a virulent sectarian ideology was also apparent – Hussain has also repeatedly been linked to attacks against Shias. All in all, not really the kind of chap you’d want to break bread with. The latest reports are that he is alive and well.

Mullah Sangeen Zadran is a complex character with linkages to militants on both sides of the Durand line. On the Afghan side, he is considered an associate of Siraj Haqqani (some claim he is a relative, which is possible as the Haqqanis also belong to the Zadran tribe) and is believed to be a key commander in eastern Afghanistan in the Haqqani network. Allegedly a scourge of the coalition troops there, Mullah Sangeen was ‘killed’ for the first time in a raid in December 2007, but survived his ‘death’. On the Pakistan side, he is considered close to Baitullah Mehsud and is believed to have set up shop in North Waziristan Agency where he eliminated a local criminal gang and then established his own reign of terror.

So what about that good Taliban/bad Taliban distinction in which never shall the twain meet? How is one man, Mullah Sangeen, working with the baddest of the bad Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, as well as the feared Haqqani network over in Afghanistan, the group the security establishment here has not been too bothered about to date?

And who were the drone strikes in South Waziristan Agency this week really meant to target? Baitullah Mehsud’s network or the Afghan Taliban? Could it be both? Are the Americans and Pakistanis cooperating once again on drone strikes, each with their own motives and agenda? It is fiendishly difficult to say given the incomplete and often plain wrong information that is leaking out from the Waziristan agencies at the moment.

As if that were not enough of a puzzle, the assassination of Qari Zainuddin this week in D.I. Khan is another mystery. Not so much in that who killed him – everybody who is anybody is blaming Baitullah Mehsud, and his group has itself claimed responsibility – but what was Qari Zainuddin’s role supposed to be in the impending Operation Rah-i-Nijaat against Baitullah Mehsud?

After a series of interviews arranged with the national and international media, Qari Zainuddin had become the face of the opposition to Baitullah from within the Mehsud tribe. But was Zainuddin really a serious rival? Or was he a minor character with a handful of supporters who was propped up by the state to achieve two things: one, encourage other enemies and rivals of Baitullah Mehsud to revolt; and, two, discredit Baitullah in the national imagination as being anti-Pakistani?

It appears to be the latter – Zainuddin’s utility seems to have been more in his potential to isolate Baitullah in the Mehsud tribe and nationally rather than actually fight him. In which case, whose bright idea was it to pick somebody who would not just denounce Baitullah but also go ahead and claim that he was part of an alliance ‘against infidels and foreign troops’ in Afghanistan?

Isn’t that proof positive of the good Taliban/bad Taliban distinction – a man put forward to denounce the ‘wayward’ Baitullah and remind the militants of the ‘good fight’ that must be fought across the border? Pat will come the response: it’s a difficult environment and there are no good options, just ones that may work; now isn’t the time to squabble over semantics and troublesome distinctions.

And so we trundle on towards South Waziristan, a volatile, dangerous land of mystery, intrigue, complexity and double games.

cyril.a@gmail.com