LeI commanders deny allegations they are providing a safe haven to Taliban fighters. “We have nothing to do with them,” says one senior commander. “They are against the government but we support Pakistan and its leaders.” But Pakistan’s military spokesman, Maj.-Gen. Athar Abbas, counters that the LeI is in league with the Taliban. “If Mangal Bagh was ever against the Taliban, he is not anymore,” Abbas says. “He has changed.”
The LeI is now supposed to be suffering the consequences, at least according to the official narrative. Bara, a dusty village that was once Bagh’s stronghold, is being reported to be under siege by government forces. According to military press releases, the militants there are on the run. The area, not more than 10 km outside of Peshawar, is under curfew. But on a recent visit there, this reporter found LeI fighters walking around openly with weapons. Mangal Bagh remains on the loose and, according to his fighters, whatever military operation there was is winding down. In the context of Pakistani interests, the LeI remains an asset, another militant proxy that can be used in the future if the need arises.
It’s an old game, and one Pakistan’s security forces seem reluctant to abandon. Even now, as former assets like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi turn their guns on their one-time benefactors, the military continues to groom its future militant allies, perhaps at the expense of the fight against the Taliban. But the world seems to have caught on. A recent aid bill passed by the U.S. Congress imposes strict conditions on Pakistan’s military. Money for counterterrorism will flow only if Pakistan tackles the militancy problem, and the military submits to strict civilian oversight.
The subtext is clear: the Pakistani military cannot be trusted. The problem now is that the military has adopted a pouting posture that may affect it taking on the Taliban in South Waziristan. “As long as the controversy over the bill does not go away,” says Khattak, “the Waziristan operation will be difficult to start.”
The trust issue, however, runs both ways. In Pakistan’s political and military circles, the prevailing belief is that the U.S. will walk away from the region after its interests are met, much as it did following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan in 1989, leaving behind the overarching problems that Pakistan has obsessed over for decades, and one in particular: India. Growing Indian influence in Afghanistan is a festering wound on the Pakistani psyche which, the senior ISI agent contends, is forcing Pakistan to look to militants to counter the threat.
Those interests extend into Waziristan, where certain groups nominally affiliated with the Taliban have at one time or another allied themselves with the Pakistani government, focusing their jihad on Afghanistan. It’s likely that military leaders will want to find a way to defeat the groups that pose a threat to the Pakistani nation, while at the same time leaving groups who represent a potential asset to counter the Indian influence in Afghanistan intact. But it will be a difficult juggling act. And if past attempts are any measure of Pakistan’s proficiency at keeping all its balls in the air, the world can expect to see a few of them come crashing down to earth.
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