In Karachi and Islamabad they really believe the US was behind 9/11. That is why opposition to the jihadists is so lukewarm
The war that has resumed between the Pakistani Army and the Taleban in the northern mountains of Pakistan is not between two clearly defined sides, with clearly defined victory and defeat. It is, instead, an extremely complicated mixture of war and politics, in which episodes of extreme violence alternate with periods of negotiation.
One of those violent periods is resuming now. Barely two months after a peace deal with the Taleban to create a Sharia system in the Swat district, the army is back on the offensive. The Taleban overstepped an unwritten mark when they tried to extend their control into the district of Buner, barely 60 miles northwest of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. The army chief, General Asfaq Kayani, stated clearly that a challenge to the existence of the Pakistani state would not be tolerated.
What will be tolerated is Taleban strength in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. As I discovered during a visit to the region last September, the level of support for them there is such that crushing them completely would take a huge campaign of repression.
As long as this conflict remains restricted to the mountains, in many ways the most important prize is not control of territory as such, but the support of the local population.
There are many reasons why this is so, and why even many Pakistanis who deeply oppose Taleban rule are also opposed to a tough military campaign against them. One is that the jihad of the Afghan Taleban against the US “occupation” of Afghanistan enjoys overwhelming public approval in northern Pakistan, at least to judge by my interviews on the streets and in the bazaars, and the Pakistani Taleban gain a great measure of prestige from their alliance with this jihad.
For more on this article, please click on the following link: Mistrust of the West is stronger in Pakistan than fear of the Taleban: Times online
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