7 Soldiers in Pakistan Are Killed by Taliban Fighters

Ishtiaq Mahsud/Associated Press

By Jane Perlez

Published: October 20, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan —

As Pakistani soldiers fought their way into the forbidding heartland of the Mehsud tribal territory on Tuesday against Taliban fighters, they faced the most ferocious fighters in Pakistan, men whose ancestors were legendary for never succumbing to the British.

A British governor of Waziristan, Sir Olaf Caroe, once wrote that the Mehsud tribesmen were the toughest opponents because, like wolves, they hunted and fought in packs.

On the fourth day of their offensive, the Pakistani soldiers continued to meet heavy resistance, particularly around the peaks of Kotkai, the hometown of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud. Seven soldiers were killed when militants attacked a checkpoint there, an intelligence official from the area said.

One thing was working in the army’s favor, however. In the time-honored tradition of the mercurial relationships in the tribal areas, the military has sealed alliances with two Taliban commanders of the Waziri tribe, winning deals that they would not attack the army on their southern and eastern flanks.

The two Waziri commanders, Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadar, control territory that surrounds the lands that are home to the rival Mehsuds and that form the Taliban stronghold where the army has begun its push.

It is an expediency that may serve the Pakistani Army, but that could work against American forces in Afghanistan. Both Mr. Nazir and Mr. Bahadar are allied with Sirajuddin Haqqani, who along with his father, Jalaluddin, runs a good part of the insurgency battling American and NATO forces over the border in Afghanistan.

At a news briefing on Monday, the army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, acknowledged the arrangement with the Taliban leaders of the Waziri tribe, saying any military would do all it could to isolate the enemy.

The Pakistani Army is actually borrowing a page from the British, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the North-West Frontier Province who spent years serving as a government official in Waziristan.

The British always tried to keep the Waziris on their side, organizing temporary truces with them to isolate the Mehsuds, especially when the British Army was stationed in North and South Waziristan from 1922 until independence in 1947, he said. As well, the Waziris were a little easier for the British to tolerate because, according to Sir Olaf Caroe, they were like panthers and hunted alone.

In the ever-shifting power politics of Pakistan’s tribal leaders, few expect the new understanding between the army and the two Waziri commanders to stick.

This is not a case of instant love, tribal experts say. Early in the summer, Mr. Bahadar’s Taliban fighters ambushed a military convoy killing at least 30 soldiers including a colonel.

But while it lasts, the new arrangement is of great tactical value to the military. “It’s expediency, it’s very temporary,” Mr. Aziz said. “But if the army’s rear is secure and the right flank is secure, the only part they have to worry about is the fight ahead.” Only eight months ago, Mr. Nazir and Mr. Bahadar were the best friends of the Mehsud Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the main domestic enemy of the Pakistani Army, and whose followers the army is now fighting.

Mr. Nazir and Mr. Bahadar had forged a triple entente in February with Baitullah Mehsud in the much-heralded United Mujahedeen Council and had done so at the behest of Al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban, Taliban spokesmen said at the time.

The Mujahedeen Council joined the leading tribes in North and South Waziristan into one cohesive group. At the time, the council represented an ominous sign of militant solidarity against the Pakistani government as terrorist attacks unleashed from Waziristan steadily escalated on Pakistan’s security forces.

But then, after the death of Baitullah Mehsud in an American drone missile attack in August, the council fell apart amid recriminations, and Mr. Nazir and Mr. Bahadar quit.

Enter the Pakistani Army. As the military planned the operation to take on the Taliban and Qaeda fighters holed up in Mehsud territory, army officers used local government officials to win the neutrality of the disaffected Mr. Nazir and Mr. Bahadar.

Most importantly for the army, in the preliminary maneuvers to the current fighting, Mr. Bahadar gave the green light for soldiers to move their supplies uninterrupted and without attack through his territory in North Waziristan and into Razmak, a government-held town on the northern edge of the battlefield.

What do Mr. Nazir and Mr. Bahadar get out of the bargain?

The provincial government has agreed to allow the Waziri tribesmen loyal to the two commanders to travel on roads that are blocked by the army as part of a siege against the Mehsuds. Short of food and supplies after two months of siege, the freedom to move is a big plus for the Waziri tribesmen, Mr. Aziz said.

How long would the deal last? “If Bahadar thinks he will get tremendous advantage — like a bag of money — this agreement will be violated,” Mr. Aziz said.

An editorial in The News, a leading English-language newspaper, summed up the enviable positions that Mr. Nasir and Mr. Bahadar found themselves in.

“Watching from a position of armed neutrality from the sidelines allows them the luxury of watching their rival suffer at no cost to themselves,” it said.

Pir Zubair Shah contributed reporting from Islamabad, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan.