Looking for the Taliban: check Quetta

Malik Siraj Akbar is a SAF Group Scholarship student from Pakistan, class of 2006 at the Asian College of Journalism (ACJ), Chennai, India. He writes While it is difficult to say who is or is not a Talib, one thing is clear: Quetta and other areas are swarming with people who are rabidly anti-US.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly accused Pakistan of being a source of shelter and support for the revived Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. But in an interview with Newsweek on 2nd October, Karzai took his accusations one step further by saying that Mullah Omar was in Quetta “for sure” and that President Pervez Musharraf knew this. In fact, according to Karzai, Afghanistan had given Musharraf the GPS numbers of Omar’s house as well as the telephone number.

There are constant reports coming in of Taliban operating from northern Balochistan in the areas of Chaman and Spinboldak; there is much talk also about Taliban presence in Quetta. During Musharraf’s recently concluded trip to the United States, these reports again came up and the Afghan president constantly argued that the Taliban were regrouping in Quetta, which was now the ‘Taliban headquarter’. For his part, Musharraf termed these allegations “most ridiculous”.

So what’s really going on?

When TFT contacted government officials to get an answer to this question, no one was willing to speak about the ‘sensitive issue’. Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousaf’s press secretary promised an appointment with the CM but later said it was not possible due to the CM’s busy schedule in the week. Balochistan Governor, Owais Ahmed Ghani’s military secretary too was reluctant to commit. The Home Minister was out of station and the inspector general of police was not willing to talk to the media.

All one has to go by are official statements, the most recent being that given by Governor Ghani and CM Jam Yousaf, at a high-level meeting in Quetta. They declared the allegations of Taliban re-grouping in Quetta as ludicrous and also announced that security on the Pak-Afghan border would be tightened by deploying more Frontier Corps (FC) personnel.

“No one, including the Taliban, will be allowed to use Balochistan’s territory for terrorist activities,” CM Jam Yousaf said at the meeting, adding that the Balochistan government had been taking “stern action” against suspect Taliban in the past and would continue to do so in the future. “Pakistan is actively engaged in the ‘war on terrorism’ and has contributed much more to this war than any other county in the world. No Taliban or Al Qaeda members are present in Quetta and the government had been hunting all suspected terrorists,” he concluded.

Ironically, despite official claims that there are no Taliban in Quetta, the government also says it has arrested a large number of Taliban operatives from the area. “Where these Taliban supporters come from and how long they’ve been here remains anybody’s guess,” said an observer. “With the [Musharraf] regime engaged on several other internal and external fronts, it has failed to effectively curb the rapidly regrouping Taliban.”

Observers also feel it is the government’s failure to implement madrassah reforms and settle the political crisis in the province that has paved the way for a Taliban comeback. “There can be no positive results until the government starts monitoring religious schools where the minds of the young are filled with ideas of hate and militancy,” says one observer.

The Taliban enjoy the overwhelming moral support of some sections of the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal, the second largest partner in the Balochistan government. “The MMA has been a vocal opponent of government raids against the suspected Taliban,” said an observer.