Taliban fighter, Kunar province, April 6, 2011. Larry Towell/Magnum
October 19, 2014
The fighting season of the summer of 2014 was
presumably the last one with American-led combat troops still deployed in Afghanistan.
The war that began in 2001 immediately after the September 11 terrorist attacks
on the United States overthrew the Taliban regime in power at the time but has
failed to crush the movement. Short of declaring victory, President Barack
Obama announced he was ready to “turn the page” on America’s longest war.
Although security and combat responsibility will be transferred completely to
the Afghan government by the end of the year, the presence of a sizeable
residual force, after the signing of a bilateral security agreement by the new
administration of President Ashraf Ghani in Kabul, will keep U.S. forces
involved in the Afghan conflict somewhat beyond 2014.
It is unlikely that a limited
U.S. presence can guarantee the stability that more than 140,000 U.S.-led coalition troops at one point could not achieve. U.S. strategy seems as confused as it
was during the course of the war. Expectations that a weak administration in
Kabul could have transformed Afghanistan into a stable state by 2014 and take
over border and internal security responsibility is unrealistic at best. With
no political reconciliation involving the Taliban insurgents in place,
long-term stability in Afghanistan remains a question as the country goes
through a landmark political transition.
Among various post-2014 scenarios
the least likely one is the eventual return of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The
group took power in the mid-1990s after the Soviet withdrawal left a power
vacuum in the country with the vision of creating an Islamic state. A
combination of mujahideen fighters and Pashtun religious students, the Taliban
gained favor among the population for providing stability and security. The
Taliban provided Al-Qaeda a safe haven during its reign, having formed strong
relations with Osama bin Laden during the civil war in the 1980s—a relationship
that eventually led to the Taliban’s downfall.
A more likely scenario is a
protracted conflict, in which the insurgent militia could gain control over a
large swath of the predominantly Pashtun region after the cessation of active
combat operations by the coalition forces. This would not only seriously test
the mettle of the Afghan national security forces, but also threaten the
stability of Pakistan across the border facing its own problem of Taliban
insurgency in the semi-autonomous tribal regions.
Having failed to disrupt the Afghan presidential
election in 2014, the Taliban stepped up attacks on coalition forces during its
summer offensive. In August, for the first time since the Vietnam War, a U.S.
army general was killed in a foreign war when an Afghan soldier, apparently a
Taliban infiltrator, shot him at a training facility. The killing of General
Harold Greene—the highest ranking member
of the U.S.-led coalition killed in the Afghanistan war—underscored the
challenge facing coalition forces as they try to wind down their involvement in
the thirteen-year-old conflict. Far from vanquished, the Taliban have widened
its operations, particularly in the eastern and southern region of Afghanistan
where the security transition has completely taxed Afghan forces.
Indeed, for the Taliban, the withdrawal of U.S.-led
combat troops is a victory for their resistance. The traditional Eid message of
Taliban supreme leader Mullah Omar this year blended tones of triumph with an
offer of reconciliation. While claiming victories on the battlefield, he called
for the establishment of an inclusive government protecting the interests of
all ethnic factions after the withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan.
Mullah Omar seems buoyed by the
release of five senior Taliban leaders by the United States from Guantanamo
prison in exchange for an American soldier, Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl,
captured by the group several years ago. Mullah Omar described the deal as a success
for the Taliban’s political negotiations in that it constituted a recognition
at the international level of the “Islamic Emirate as a political reality.” The
deal had been on the negotiating table for more than two years, and the issue
was directly linked with the start of a formal negotiation process between the
Afghan Taliban and the United States on the future of Afghanistan. The United
States changed tactics in 2011, when it believed it had made enough progress
against the Taliban to start talks with the group about ending the war. The talks
materialized last year, after the Taliban opened an office in Doha, Qatar and
the Afghan army officially took over the country’s security.
Apart from other factors, the initial U.S. refusal to
release the Taliban prisoners was a major reason that the Doha talks never
progressed. Mullah Omar intended for all five detainees to be part of the
Taliban negotiating team. The Bowe Bergdahl deal may have come too late. There
was no indication in Mullah Omar’s Eid message about any prospects for a
resumption of direct talks.
Over the years the Taliban
insurgency has grown in intensity, spreading to even non-Pashtun Afghan
territories. While the Taliban have consolidated its war gains in
Pashtun-dominated south and eastern Afghanistan, attacks in northern regions
have intensified in the recent years. The Taliban demonstrated their growing
strength in the north by launching regular attacks in the provinces of Takhar
and Badakhshan, which have been among the country’s most peaceful, and in the
provinces of Balkh and Samangan. The Taliban have managed to consolidate their war
gains by tapping into widespread discontent with the incompetence and
corruption so deeply entrenched among Afghan government officials. In many
areas the Taliban have effectively supplanted the official authorities, running
local administrations and courts, and conscripting recruits.
In a protracted conflict between the Kabul government
and the Taliban, relatively low, but still significant, levels of violence
would seriously affect Afghan stabilization and reconstruction. Another
consequence of the continued violence and political instability could be a de
facto partition of Afghanistan arising from a steady increase in Taliban
control in the Pashtun-majority areas in the southern and eastern
provinces.
Leadership of Mullah Omar
The revival of the Taliban as a powerful insurgent
force having been routed in 2001 should not come as a surprise. In fact, the
radical group was never really defeated. Its
fighters melted into the population or took sanctuary across the border
in Pakistan among their Pashtun brethren. Afghan refugee camps and radical madrasahs—established
after the Soviet invasion in 1979—became a haven for the Taliban fighters. Most
of the leadership had survived the offensive and also moved to Pakistan.
In that initial period, senior leaders were fragmented
and disunited over what they should do. The shock and trauma of the fall of
their regime had paralyzed the leadership. The organization had crumbled. There
was no structure with which to regroup and revive. While some were determined
to fight, others were more inclined toward exploring negotiated political
options. Their isolation had increased as their support among Afghan people
declined. Occasional statements and threats from senior leaders condemning the
occupation found little response among the Afghans.
In the last period of its power, the Taliban had lost
a significant mass support base with its regressive social policies, which
included forcing women to wear burqas, banning music and television, and
implementing harsh criminal punishments for petty offenses. Initially Afghans
at large seemed content and hoped for a better future under the new order
installed by the occupation army. A new political paradigm was in play and the
Taliban did not hold much appeal for the war-weary Afghan population. There was
no serious effort to organize a resistance.
It took more
than two years for the Taliban leadership to recover and rebuild its structure.
In June 2003, a ten-member leadership shura council was formed and given
responsibility to formulate a political and military strategy for the
resistance. Led by Mullah Omar, the council, later known as the Quetta Shura,
mostly comprised the old guard that had formed the core of the former Taliban
regime.
Meanwhile, the Taliban began an organized recruitment
effort in the madrasahs—in Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and Karachi.
The Quetta Shura won implicit support from the Pakistani security
establishment, which was deeply concerned by the unfriendly government in Kabul
(which, in turn, accused Pakistan of supporting the Taliban). The new Afghan
government was installed after the Bonn Agreement of 2001, signed at a
conference hosted by the United Nations; various anti-Taliban Afghan
representatives and international actors adopted measures for Afghanistan’s
political transition, including the creation of the International Security
Assistance Force (ISAF). In that early period of revival, the Taliban
leadership had not fully developed a clear political or military strategy and
merely reacted to circumstances.
The period from 2003 to 2005 was
a turning point as the Taliban consolidated their organizational structure and
expanded its activities. It was also the time when Afghanistan enacted its new
constitution with a highly centralized presidential form of government. Public
support for the new political dispensation began eroding as security remained
weak, and reports of fraud and corruption increased. Meanwhile, the Taliban’s
resurgence was also aided by the strategic mistake by the United States to
re-empower former strongmen and warlords, which reprised old ethnic and tribal
tensions.
The alienation was greatest in the eastern and
southern part of the country populated by Pashtuns, who felt politically
sidelined and targeted by the coalition forces and the new authorities in
Kabul. This was the bastion of the ousted Taliban regime, and in a repeat of
1994 when the Taliban restored order amid criminal activity and fighting in
southern Afghanistan, the local population started contacting the Taliban.
People willingly gave shelter to the insurgents. It was a dramatic change from
the period after its fall in 2001 when the Taliban could not find any haven in
the community. The insurgents later began to get a foothold in the north as
well, exploiting the divisions among various power groups within the new Afghan
government.
That success spurred momentum for the Taliban in the
entire country. As the resentment against the foreign occupation forces grew,
the Taliban’s influence increased. Indiscriminate killings and arrests of
innocent people added to the alienation and anger felt by local communities.
Growing numbers of women and children were also being killed in air attacks.
“Each bombing and killing of civilians added to our support,” a senior Taliban
commander told me in an interview in 2006 in a Pakistani border region. Police
brutality turned even those who had initially supported the new Afghan
administration toward the Taliban.
The operations carried out by the Taliban up to 2003
comprised relatively small and targeted attacks. There were very few instances
of any large-scale attacks on coalition forces during this period. But, by
summer 2006, the Taliban had developed its military and political strategy with
an ambition to establish territorial control, particularly in southern
Afghanistan.
There was a serious attempt to
force the international community and the coalition forces to review their
policy in Afghanistan by escalating attacks. The new tactics were to carry out
frontal attacks on the Western forces, unleash a massive increase in suicide
bombings, utilize improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and wage an aggressive
public relations campaign. The full-scale attacks were not very successful and
resulted in heavy civilian casualties. Nevertheless, the spectacular acts of
violence and growing insurgency in the south and southeast propelled the
Taliban propaganda message that Western forces and the Afghan administration
were unable to provide security for the local population.
The growing use of suicide bombings dramatically
increased the level of violence. Initially most of the suicide bombers were
either Pakistanis or Afghans living in Pakistan. But later more local Afghans
started signing up. Suicide bombings became a weapon of choice for the
insurgents, generating fear and projecting greater capacity than was the actual
case.
The escalating civilian
casualties also produced a backlash against the Taliban among the local
population. This led to a heated debate within the Taliban leadership over the
effectiveness as well as religious legitimacy of suicide attacks. That then led
to the declaration in 2009 by the Taliban military council that suicide bombing
was not a legitimate tactic, although sporadic suicide attacks continue by some
insurgent factions.
The Taliban started focusing more on winning over the
local population as violence increased in 2008 and 2009. At that time,
President Obama took office and embarked on ambitious multiple-level programs
that shifted American attention from the U.S. war in Iraq back to Afghanistan.
Despite the surge in U.S. forces——numbers moved toward 100,000 by the end of 2009—the security situation deteriorated all over the country. Particularly in
the south and southeast, insurgent attacks hit an all-time high as did the
number of casualties among Afghan and Western soldiers.
The north also saw a significant
rise of Taliban influence during that period. A report by the U.S. military to
the U.S. Congress in 2010 estimated that forty-eight districts out of
ninety-two surveyed were supportive of the Taliban. According to an estimation
by the Afghan intelligence agency, some 1,700 Taliban field commanders
controlled anywhere between 10,000 to 30,000 fighters. More than 6,200 Afghan
and coalition soldiers were killed or wounded in roadside bomb attacks during
this period. The increasing influence of the Taliban in the north was the most
significant development.
The insurgents made significant
gains in the northern provinces—in particular, Kunduz, Baghlan, Badghis, and
Faryab—where active Taliban or associated groups operated. Turning their focus
on the north helped the Taliban show that the movement was not confined to only
the Pashtun region in eastern and southern Afghanistan. The Taliban reportedly
made significant inroads among the Uzbek and Tajik communities as well.
Rise of Young Radicals
Notwithstanding these successes on the ground, the
thinking within the Afghan Taliban concerning the future of Afghanistan remains
obscure. This perhaps reflects fracture within the group. Although Mullah Omar
enjoys absolute loyalty of the leadership council, his influence seems to have
waned over the years with the growing radicalization of a new generation of
field commanders. Most of them were teenagers during Taliban rule, but now form
the core of the resistance. Being out of the field for so long—believed to be
operating from the Pakistani side of the border—seems to have turned Mullah
Omar into more of a symbolic figurehead.
While the core leadership has formed strong
administrative structures, the exact composition of and details surrounding the
operational command remain opaque. Field commanders act somewhat autonomously,
with little control by the central leadership council. Some reports suggest
that the young and more radicalized commanders and lower ranks have even
started questioning the decisions of Mullah Omar. But his position as supreme
leader is not likely to be challenged publically.
The Quetta Shura administrative leadership structure
has evolved over the years. Having begun with eleven members, its number is now
believed to have reached thirty-three. Regional Peshawar and Miram Shah shuras also operate under the Quetta
council. While the overall leadership lies with Mullah Omar, the head of the
shura guides the day-to-day operations. Committees under the provincial shura,
however, carry out many administrative functions.
The relationship between the
various Taliban committees based in Pakistan and the field commanders in
Afghanistan is complex. It is quite evident that the insurgency on the ground
is less organized and that decision making is often left to individual
commanders. Unlike the top administrative structure, the hierarchy in the field
is less clear.
The Taliban may be united under one banner, but the
group is comprised of various factions. The most powerful is said to be the
Haqqani network, led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin. A leading
former mujahideen commander in the resistance against the Soviets, Jalaluddin
was appointed as the commander in chief of the Taliban militia in the last days
before the fall of the regime in 2001. He had joined the Taliban in 1995 after
the militia closed in on Kabul for its victory in the civil war. He heads the
Miram Shah Shura and has a seat in the leadership council in Quetta.
The Haqqani network, which until recently operated
from Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region, has emerged as the most lethal
insurgent group fighting the coalition forces in the eastern Afghan provinces
of Khost, Paktia, and Paktika. It has also been involved in some spectacular
attacks inside Kabul.
The network wields significant influence and power
among the Afghan as well as the Pakistani Taliban. It has gained more power
because of its long-standing links with Al-Qaeda, providing Al-Qaeda members a
safe haven in eastern Afghanistan. The reported weakening of Mullah Omar’s
authority and the arrests and killing of some of the most powerful members of
the leadership shura has further strengthened Haqqani’s role in the insurgency.
Sirajuddin has effectively taken over the command of
the network as his father has been sidelined because of a prolonged illness. In
his early thirties, the younger Haqqani has earned a reputation of being the
fiercest insurgent commander. His radical worldview has been shaped by his
personal ties with Al-Qaeda and international jihadist groups, in comparison
with other members of the Taliban leadership council who did not share
Al-Qaeda’s global agenda.
For the Taliban generally, however, the events leading
to the American invasion of Afghanistan began fraying the group’s ties with
Al-Qaeda. Many mid-level Taliban commanders blamed bin Laden and the September
11 attacks for the U.S. assault on Afghanistan. The Taliban and Al-Qaeda
leaderships largely cut off contact after their retreat across the border into
Pakistan.
Al-Qaeda and other foreign
fighters were in a very different situation to the Taliban in Pakistan. It was
a complete change of environment for the group to operate in Pakistani tribal
regions. The shift in the circumstances meant far more compartmentalization of
the organizational structure. Most of the Al-Qaeda leadership and foreign
fighters initially made North Waziristan their base; some of them scattered to
other areas including Pakistani cities, where they were sheltered by Pakistani
jihadi groups.
Bin Laden and other Al-Qaeda leaders had contacts in
the area that dated back to the war of resistance against the Soviet occupation
forces. Jalaluddin and his clan had developed a strong nexus with the Arab
fighters. Most of the Al-Qaeda old guard have either been killed by U.S. drone
strikes or arrested by Pakistani authorities; bin Laden himself was killed in a
U.S. raid in 2011 on his compound in Abbottabad near Islamabad, where he had
been secretly hiding for several years. But a new Al-Qaeda organization, mostly
comprising Pakistani militants, has evolved over the years. This new generation
of Al-Qaeda now has resumed close links with the Afghan Taliban.
For Pakistani authorities, the Haqqani network
remained a useful hedge against an uncertain outcome in Afghanistan. The deep
reluctance to take action against the network has been a reflection of Pakistan’s
worries about the eventual withdrawal of Western forces from Afghanistan.
But in an apparent policy shift, the Pakistan military
has now for the first time declared that its latest offensive will target all
militant groups without discrimination, including the Haqqani network. Most of
the fighters associated with the Haqqani network are believed to have moved to
Afghanistan before the offensive in North Waziristan began in June. The
military has said the group will not find Pakistani territory a safe haven
anymore. There is, however, no likelihood of the Haqqanis engaging in any
confrontation with their former Pakistani patrons. There is lot of skepticism
that Pakistan will seriously pursue the Afghan Taliban.
How deep the divisions within the
Taliban really go is not at all clear. There are conflicting views about the
state of unity within the insurgency. While one view is that the Taliban is an
amorphous collection of groups and factions, other analysts portray the Taliban
as a monolithic and organized resistance movement owing its total
loyalty to Mullah Omar. Lack of clarity makes it hard to predict whether the
Taliban would remain united or split after the withdrawal of Western forces
from Afghanistan.
There is strong concern within the Taliban leadership
that the end of foreign occupation may lead to a sharp drop in recruitment
among the Pashtun who have been fighting a “defensive jihad” against the
invaders. A continuation of civil war may not get the Taliban the same level of
support. One other point of divide could be the issue of a possible negotiated
settlement with the new Afghan leadership.
Some relatively moderate elements
in the Taliban leadership favor peace talks with the Kabul government on
minimal conditions that may give the insurgents a share in the central
government and de facto control over most of eastern and southern Afghanistan.
In return, the Taliban would end the war and evict Al-Qaeda from their
territory.
For moderates, the thinking appears to be the belief
that the Taliban cannot win an outright military victory leading to the
conquest of the whole of Afghanistan, or the approximately 90 percent of the
country that they held in the summer of 2001 prior to the September 11 attacks
and resulting American invasion.
The future of the Taliban will be dictated by the
course of events in Afghanistan itself. The different factions of the Taliban
will wait to see how things develop on the ground. It will also depend to some
extent on the new Afghan president and what legitimacy he holds following the
contested presidential election in 2014.
Threat to Pakistan
Whatever happens in Afghanistan will have a direct
bearing on Pakistan. With the Afghan endgame looming, Pakistan’s biggest
nightmare is the prospect of Taliban control—even only in parts of
Afghanistan—after the withdrawal of the foreign forces. The very notion of
success of the Taliban across the border may have a cascading effect on
Pakistan’s threat matrix.
The fear stems from the fact that it is ethnic
Pashtuns on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border who have taken the
lead in the insurgency. A distinctive Taliban movement known as
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), with strong ties to the insurgents across the
Durand Line, has evolved to present a serious threat to Pakistan’s internal
security.
Both the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban are
predominantly Pashtun movements and have close ideological and organizational
ties. Despite their differences in tactics—the Afghan Taliban leadership does
not support TTP’s policy of fighting the Pakistani forces—they share the same
objective of establishing a harsh version of Islamic rule. More importantly,
both the movements owe their allegiance to Mullah Omar.
The prospect of the Taliban dominating both sides of
the border is the one of the most significant threats to regional security.
Continued instability in Afghanistan has had significant implications for
Pakistan. The long war in Afghanistan has turned Pakistan into a new
battleground for Al-Qaeda linked militants, and has also had devastating
effects on Pakistan’s domestic economy and political scene, thus threatening to
destabilize the country. Thousands of Pakistani civilians and military
personnel have been killed in terrorist attacks and in the fighting against the
insurgents in the country’s northwestern territories.
The emergence of the Pakistani Taliban is both a
consequence of the war in Afghanistan and the military operations carried out
by Pakistan forces, which severely undermined the age-old administrative
structure in the tribal areas. Members of the tribal councils and
chieftains—through whom the federal government established its authority—were
either killed or driven out by militants. A new crop of Pakistani militants
emerged to fill the vacuum created by the collapse of the administrative system
in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) over which the Pakistani
government had at best tenuous control.
Taliban groups started emerging in FATA and parts of
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2004. Those militants forcibly closed down video
and audio shops, as well as Internet cafés, declaring them un-Islamic. The
Taliban also ordered barbers not to shave beards. People were prohibited from
playing music, even at weddings and traditional fairs, which provided some form
of entertainment to the public.
The group took a formal
organizational shape in December 2007 when some forty militant leaders
commanding 40,000 fighters gathered in South Waziristan to form a united front
under the banner of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. They unanimously elected
Baitullah Mehsud, already their most powerful commander, as emir or supreme
leader of the new organization. Almost all the top militant leaders operating
in the tribal regions and/or their representatives set aside their differences
to attend the meeting.
The shura council not only had representation from all
the seven tribal agencies but also from the parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
including Swat, Malakand, Buner, and Dera Ismail Khan where the Taliban
movement was active. The eight-point charter called for the enforcement of
sharia rule and vowed to continue fighting against Western forces in
Afghanistan. The TTP also declared what it described as “defensive” jihad
against the Pakistani military. The newly formed TTP was in fact little more
than an extension of Al-Qaeda.
Its formation followed bin
Laden’s declaration of war against the Pakistani state in the aftermath of the
siege of Islamabad’s Red Mosque in July 2007. Its charter clearly reflected
Al-Qaeda’s new strategy to extend its war to Pakistan. Almost all the top
leaders of the new organization, particularly Baitullah, had connections with
Al-Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban movement.
The rise of a distinctive Pakistani Taliban movement
represents a new and more violent phase of Islamic militancy in the country.
Unprecedented violence engulfed all seven tribal regions as well as parts of
the northern province. Just days after its creation, former Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto was assassinated a few weeks following her return to the country
after a protracted period in exile. The militants had finally succeeded in
removing the leader who had dared to confront them. Baitullah was blamed for
Bhutto’s murder, which was to completely change Pakistan’s political landscape.
The new generation of Pakistani Taliban became more
brutal than their Afghan comrades. Beheading and public executions of opponents
and government officials became common practice. The videos of those brutal
actions were then distributed to create fear. These sadistic actions were
unknown in traditional Pashtun culture. This behavior was greatly influenced by
Arab and Uzbek militants. The Pakistani Taliban’s creed probably stemmed from
the Salafist jihadism ideology espoused by Al-Qaeda. It was also the result of
Wahhabism found in Saudi-funded madrasahs, which created a new kind of
Sunni radicalization specific to the Taliban.
Successive Pakistani military operations and U.S.
drone strikes have hugely weakened the TTP. Over the last few years, it has lost
many of its senior commanders and the organization has fragmented into various
factions. The long delayed military offensive in the North Waziristan tribal
area, which had emerged as the center of gravity of the militancy in Pakistan,
has driven out Taliban leaders from their most secure stronghold. Now their
ability to launch major terrorist attacks has been badly crippled, but
Pakistan’s control over the tribal territories remains tentative.
A key flaw in Pakistan’s strategy
in the fight against the insurgency is that it has not taken into account the
ability of the groups to regenerate. The government has failed to put in place
an effective administration and policing system after successful military
operations drove the militants out but left residents under perpetual threat of
their return.
Their fear is justified. The militants have shown
themselves capable of regrouping and striking back. The Pakistani military has
now deployed 100,000 troops in the effort to root out the militants. Yet,
despite the increased deployment, militant attacks have resumed in some of the
areas that were thought to have been already cleared.
A major challenge confronting Pakistani security
forces is that many Pakistani Taliban leaders, including the new TTP chief
Mullah Fazlullah (who rose following the U.S. drone strike killings of
Baitullah Mehsud and his successor Hakimullah Mehsud), have fled the military
offensive and are now operating from bases on the Afghan side of the border.
Most of the attacks on Pakistani security forces are being carried out from
those cross-border sanctuaries.
Pakistan’s patronage of the Afghan Taliban and
particularly of the Haqqani network became a convenient rationale for the
government in Kabul to permit sanctuaries for Pakistani insurgents on Afghan
soil. There is strong evidence of close links between some TTP factions and
Afghan intelligence agencies.
This tit-for-tat policy has had disastrous
consequences for both nations. Their age-old legacy of using proxies against
each other had disastrous consequences for regional security. The war of
sanctuaries has only benefited the militants who have sought to establish their
barbaric rule on both sides of the border.
The problem is further highlighted after Pakistan
launched the massive military operation against local and foreign militants in
North Waziristan. The fleeing insurgents using sanctuaries on the other side of
the Durand Line for cross-border attacks has been Pakistan’s biggest security
nightmare.
Both countries need each other to cooperate more than
ever at this critical juncture as the Western forces prepare to end their
combat mission in Afghanistan. Continued instability in Afghanistan is bound to
spill over into Pakistan.
Zahid Hussain is
the author of Frontline
Pakistan: The Struggle with Militant Islam and The Scorpion’s
Tail: The Relentless Rise of Islamic Militants in Pakistan And How It Threatens
America. A columnist for
Pakistan’s daily Dawn
newspaper, he is a former correspondent for the Times of London and the Wall Street
Journal. From 2011 to 2012 he was
the Pakistan Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in
Washington, DC.