The Pakistan Army has indicated that within the next few days it intends to launch the “mother of all battles” in South Waziristan in order to deliver what it hopes will be the fatal blow to the Taleban. South Waziristan is considered Taleban’s prime power base and the offensive will be on par with the recent campaign in the Swat Valley.
The response to this long expected-offensive is one of mixed feelings. The very term “mother of all battles” is unfortunate, recalling as it does, Saddam Hussein’s pompous boast about how he would defeat the US-led international forces in Kuwait.
There is no suggestion that the Pakistan Army is going to lose like Saddam Hussein but this is not going to be a walkover. The Swat offensive during the summer turned out to be a much bloodier affair than the army expected. Over 300 soldiers were killed, two million people were forced to flee their homes and Mingora, the valley’s main city, was wrecked. In the end, the army triumphed, killing nearly 2,000 militants in the process; many of the refugees have now returned home. But it was a longer struggle than anticipated — and there the number of militants was put at 5,000; in South Waziristan the number is reckoned to be much higher. Before he was killed in August as a result of a US drone attack, the militants’ leader, Baitullah Mehsud, could count on at least 12,000 men. His Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (TTP) alliance has started to unravel but it can still count on at least 6,000 to 8,000 men, including the 4,000 foreigners trapped by the army’s three-month blockade of the area.
It is going to be a bitter struggle and probably longer than the month that military officials estimate. That will take it into the winter; snow will start to fall in five or six weeks’ time and that will delay matters, playing into the militants’ hands. In any event, they are going to fight to the last man. Their backs are against the wall; they have nothing to lose but their lives — for them, something of no consequence. The private comment of one army officer is, therefore, almost certainly true: “This is going to be casualty-intensive hard fighting. The nation will have to bear the pain.”
It may not just be the pain of soldiers killed. The man behind the wave of suicide bombings across the country, Qari Hussain, has promised more in retaliation for the deaths of Baitullah and Kaleemullah Mehsud, brother of Hakeemullah Mehsud, Baitullah’s successor as leader of the TTP; he was killed in a shoot-out with security forces on Monday.
Such are the concerns about where this offensive will take Pakistan. But what else can the army do? The integrity of the country and the government’s authority have to be defended. Pakistan has learned the hard way that it cannot do deals with the TTP. It is a highly dangerous organization that cannot be trusted. If the army does not move in to destroy it, it will gather fresh support and try once again to seize control of Pakistan. Whether this is the final battle remains to be seen, but it is one the army must undertake, however painful it may prove.
