Afghan Mission Is Not Accomplished

At around 1 a.m. on August 5, a pilotless US drone hovering across the Durand Line moved in and fired two 'Hellfire' missiles at a house in a remote village in the tribal area of South Waziristan. The house was owned by the father-in-law of Pakistan's most wanted terrorist, Baitullah Mehsud. Despite his supporters' denials, it seems more than plausible that Baitullah perished in the deadly missile strike. Alluding to the attack, Pakistani strategic analyst Ayesha Siddiqa observed: "He (Baitullah) was originally supported by the military and ISI. But he had begun to bite the hand that fed him. His death was a powerful signal to them all."

Baitullah had, after all, been an ISI "asset". Pakistan's military signed a landmark ceasefire agreement with him in 2005, which gave him control over South Waziristan. Baitullah, however, turned a bitter foe of the military after it stormed the Lal Masjid in Islamabad and killed hundreds of young Pashtun women from the tribal areas, in July 2007. The action ordered by General Pervez Musharraf came after radical clerics took over the masjid and virtually held the capital hostage. Following this, Baitullah united Taliban groups operating across the seven tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan, under the Tehriq-e-Taliban-e-Pakistan's (TTP) banner. Apart from launching attacks on army and ISI personnel in cities like Rawalpindi and Lahore, the TTP humiliated the army by forcing the surrender of a convoy of 243 army personnel on November 4, 2007.

The popular belief in Pakistan is that Baitullah masterminded Benazir Bhutto's assassination. Predictably, the ISI built the myth that he was actually an agent of the CIA, KHAD (Afghan Intelligence) and India's R&AW! Now that he has been eliminated by a CIA missile, the Americans would possibly be exonerated of this cardinal sin.

But Baitullah is merely one of dozens of Taliban leaders in Pakistan, where the classification appears to be that if you kill American and Afghan soldiers after crossing the Durand Line into Afghanistan, you are officially 'good Taliban', to be armed, trained and backed by the ISI. But if you combine such activity with attempts to create unrest in Pakistan, you are categorised as 'bad Taliban', and eliminated.

While the army, ISI and a large section of the public in Pakistan are overjoyed at Baitullah's killing by the otherwise much-reviled Americans, it would not be prudent to believe that his removal will signal any change in the ISI's approach of supporting the Taliban leaders it favours. Notable amongst the commanders of the 'good Taliban' are veteran Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani and his son Sirajuddin, who executed the attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008.