Mission far from accomplished - Taliban power grows in Pakistan:

[Call Me Wesley]

Pakistan Consumed by Violence as Taliban Power Grows

By Susanne Koelbl and Sohail Nasir (DER SPIEGEL)

The Taliban's power in Pakistan continues to grow and it now has entire towns under its control. Under US pressure, the Pakistani army is fighting the Islamists -- with limited success. Pakistani intelligence says the Americans are doing more harm than good.

The Taliban has become so powerful in Pakistan that it can afford internecine battles for dominance. At the same time, the Pakistani army, fired up by the US government, is waging a war against the religious militants in the rugged, inhospitable and hard-to-control border region in the northwest. Islamabad's military offensive has prompted the Taliban to withdraw, and yet it is also expanding its radius deep into the country's interior, reaching as far as major cities like Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad.

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,1600626,00.jpg

Read full article, three pages here.

[grantcart]

1. This anecdotal story consumed with stories from the most remote areas

ignores that most salient and basic fact that virtually all well informed long term observers have seen over the last two months:


For the first time non Taliban Pakistan is absolutely unified against the Taliban.

http://www.globalissues.org/news/2009/07/01/2042

According to the poll, 70 percent of Pakistanis said they are more sympathetic with their government than the Taliban, while only five percent said they were more sympathetic with the Taliban.

For the last 30 years the average Pakistani saw India as its primary national security threat. The bombing in Mubai the attack against the hockey team and the over extension of the Taliban in the Swat valley (universally perceived as a strategic disaster for the Taliban).

The Taliban has existed in the shadows and played the tribal game very effectively.

Now they are in the cross hairs and it is the government that will manipulate the ethnic divisions of the remote tribes to undermine the fragile unity the Taliban has maintained.


The Pakistan establishment, with the overwhelming support of all political parties, can now apply military, economic and cultural pressure on the Taliban in ways that they have never seen.


It is the classical problem of an insurgent force; at some point your success requires that you establish administration, and in so doing you become a more visible target.

The last two months have been an absolute disaster for the Taliban, Speigel should have been paying attention on the new reapproachmont that the vast majority of competing interests in larger Pakistan than in Muhammed Ullah's farewell video on April 3rd.
The Pakistan of July 27th is completely different than the Pakistan of April 3rd.

[Call Me Wesley]

2. The article is mostly about Mehsud,

and the article you quote says quite the same:

However, as the Pakistani military gears up to take the fight to Mehsud’s stronghold in South Waziristan, some 45,000 civilians have fled that area in anticipation of violence to come.

So this battle isn't over yet and Mehsud's stronghold remains in these areas.

[grantcart]

3. I'll conceed all of the details in your story

The larger, much larger issue is that the Taliban over extended themselves and have scared the shit out of the average Pakistani.


Pakistan is largely a secular country and the secular forces have used Taliban and other ethnic groups to manipulate against each other.

But now all of the secular parties are united in getting rid of the Taliban. They know the ethnic calculus in those areas better than anyone and at the same time they are applying military pressure will peal off ethnic tribes who have joined with the Taliban in exchange of arms and economic reasons.

The will not be able to militarily defeat the Taliban in their most hard core areas but they can reduce and contain them and work on the many divisions within the Taliban.

Going into this winter the Taliban will probably have 50% of the area under control that they had at the begining of the summer, so it cannot be argued that the Taliban are 'gaining ground'.