– JUNE 10, 2014
Only a week ago,
the Pakistani Taliban appeared to be on the ropes. Violent rivalries had split
the insurgency in two. Peace talks with the government had collapsed. Military
jets had pounded militant hide-outs in the tribal belt.
Then on Sunday, the
Taliban hit back.
A squad of militant
commandos, disguised as government security forces, stormed Karachi’s
international airport after dark. They carried food, water and ammunition,
apparently in preparation for a long siege, and big ambitions: perhaps to
hijack a commercial airliner, government officials said Monday, or to blow up
an oil depot, or to destroy airplanes on the tarmac.
The 10 attackers
were dead five hours later, shot by soldiers or blown up by their own suicide
vests. Yet the audacious nature of the assault shook Pakistan to its core,
offering a violent reminder that for all its divisions, the Taliban remain an
astonishingly resilient force.
It has kept a reach
far beyond its tribal redoubt along the Afghan border, with an ability to
penetrate the country’s busiest airport in the largest city. And the discovery
that Uzbek jihadis were among the attackers underscores how, even in splinters,
the Taliban can draw on an international militant network to conduct
sophisticated attacks — which means trouble not just for Pakistan’s government
and military, but for American interests in Afghanistan.
The determined
attack seems to bear out earlier warnings by counterterrorism experts that the
Taliban split two weeks ago was unlikely to erode the group’s capacity for
mayhem.
“It’s become a
hydra-headed monster,” said Najmuddin Shaikh, a retired head of Pakistan’s
foreign service. “They had limited success in Karachi, but maybe that was just
our good luck.”
Key to the
Taliban’s strength is the web of alliances it has cultivated with fellow
militant groups in North Waziristan, the tribal district along the Afghan
border that since 2001 has evolved into a vibrant global hub of jihadi money,
ideology and fighters — Punjabis, Chechens, Arabs, Central Asians, Afghan
Taliban and a smattering of Westerners.
The Taliban’s major
ally is the Haqqani network, a formidable force in the Afghan insurgency that
held the American soldier Bowe Bergdahl hostage for five years until his release on May 31. But they have other
allies too — fighters whose militancy was born elsewhere, but who have joined
in the Taliban fight.
Chief among them
are the Uzbeks, hard-bitten fighters who followed Osama bin Laden into Pakistan
after September 2001, and who have since become an important element of the
Taliban insurgency, offering Pakistan fighters what experts call a deep
bench of militant training and expertise.
Uzbeks played a
central role in two major jailbreaks and an attack on Peshawar’s airport over
the past two years. And when Pakistani security forces displayed the bodies of
the men who attacked Karachi airport on Sunday — a line of 10 shrouds, one of
them topped with a severed head — they said that several of them were Uzbeks.
Speaking by
telephone from Waziristan, a Pakistani Taliban commander said the foreign
jihadis had participated in the operation in revenge for recent military airstrikes
in Waziristan that targeted the Uzbeks. “The I.M.U. has always been a great
source of strength for us,” the commander said, referring to the Islamic
Movement of Uzbekistan, the main Uzbek group. “They were very furious at the
strikes, which killed a dozen of their people.”
For Pakistan’s
leaders, who for months have been wavering between talking and fighting, the
Taliban’s robustness is likely to inform their next step. The prime minister,
Nawaz Sharif, is due to meet with the army leadership in the next two days,
Pakistani officials said, to discuss a possible military response to the
Karachi attack.
“This marks an
escalation of the war,” said Adil Najam, a Pakistani analyst who is dean of
the Pardee School of
Global Studies at Boston University. “And it shows that this is
going to be a long war.”
Details of Sunday’s
assault underlined how well prepared the Taliban were.
The assault started
around 11 p.m. when two teams of five militants, disguised as police and army
paramilitaries, entered the airport complex over a perimeter wall and through
an entrance frequently used by top government officials and foreign
dignitaries.
As counterterrorism
commandos scrambled to respond, some arriving in armored personnel carriers,
the fighting centered on the airport’s old terminal, known as the Hajj
terminal, and a nearby cargo building. The militants fought through the night
as terrified passengers sat in airplanes stranded on the tarmac. The cargo
building became engulfed in flames.
When the battle
finally ended an hour before dawn on Monday, officials said, the militants had
killed at least 19 people, including four employees of Pakistan International
Airlines, the state carrier.
A senior army
officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized
to brief the public, said that seven attackers were killed in the fighting, and
another three died when they blew up their suicide vests.
By midafternoon the
airport had been reopened for passenger traffic. But with many flights canceled
or rescheduled, passengers gathered around airline information counters in an
atmosphere that veered from apprehensive to resigned.
Elvina James, 46,
who was hoping to fly to Lahore, was philosophical about using the airport so
soon. “You have to take some risks in life,” she said.
Ahsan Hameed, a
trader on his way to Dubai, said he was putting his faith in the Pakistani
Army.
Dr. Sofia Yousuf,
on her way to Saudi Arabia with her family for a religious pilgrimage, was
still upset by the night’s events. “In Pakistan you get used to these things
happening,” she said. “But I’m so sad about what will happen next.”
Karachi is already
a city in political tumult. But the Taliban attack represented a rare assault
on the privileges of the most affluent citizens of the country’s most
cosmopolitan city.
Although some
wealthy businessmen from Karachi have been kidnapped by the Taliban, most of
the rich have insulated themselves from Taliban violence, which has most often
targeted military bases, the police or markets where poor Pakistanis gather.
But Sunday’s attack
closed, temporarily, a transport hub that for many is a gateway to meetings in
Dubai, holidays in Thailand and summer homes in London.
Some Karachi
residents said they feared that Western airlines might reduce their services,
as some did after the Red Mosque siege in Islamabad in 2007.
Others vented their frustrations on social media, remarking acerbically how
airport security officials, who are famous for their great care in searching
passengers for illegal alcohol, failed to halt the terrorists.
The Taliban’s
boldness in Karachi may help provoke action in Waziristan. In recent weeks,
tribal elders from North Waziristan have held meetings with senior government
officials in Peshawar — an indication, some say, that they are girding for an
impending army operation.
“The T.T.P. has
closed the avenue for talks,” said Mr. Shaikh, the retired diplomat, using the
abbreviation for the main Pakistani Taliban faction. “And the army knows that
if it can get to the root, the branches will wither.”
But any action
against the Taliban, as ever, is fraught with skullduggery and politics. There
is little indication that, for all its tough talk against the Taliban,
Pakistan’s military has abandoned its decades-old policy of indulging some
militant groups, like the Haqqani network and Lashkar-e-Taiba, who have been
willing to further the army’s foreign policy aims.
The military also
is caught up in simmering tensions with Mr. Sharif, the prime minister, who has
clung to the idea that peace talks can still end the Pakistani Taliban’s
insurgency.
“Now that the
Taliban have splintered, we could see multiple groups fighting the government
in different ways,” said Mr. Najam, the academic. “And so the real test is
whether the political will can hold.”
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