[Militants have attacked
inside Peshawar, a city of an estimated four million people, once a day, on
average, for the past five months, according to provincial government
statistics. That accounts for about half of the militant episodes across
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.]
By Ihsanullah
Tipu Mehsud, Ismail Khan and Declan Walsh
 |
Mohammad
Sajjad/Associated Press
A
Pakistani Army soldier at the site of a car bombing in June near a police
station and market in Peshawar. At least 17
people died.
|
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Groups of Taliban fighters are spilling out of the tribal belt in
northwestern Pakistan into the region’s largest city, Peshawar, where they are
increasingly showing their presence through a campaign of intimidation and
violence, according to residents, the police and city officials.
While Taliban violence
has declined across Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province this year, officials say, rates
have increased in Peshawar, where militants have stepped up attacks aimed at
the police, extortion demands, sectarian killings and kidnappings.
For all that, the
militants do not pose an immediate threat to the overall control of the city,
and the police say they have foiled many potential attacks. But the increased
Taliban presence does signal a further advance for the militants, who have also
become a more muscular presence this year in Karachi, the country’s most
populous city.
Their strength has also
bolstered a broader wave of sectarian violence in the northwest. On Saturday,
the toll from a double bomb attack conducted on Friday against minority Shiites
in Parachinar, a tribal town west of Peshawar, climbed to 57 dead and at least
167 wounded, the authorities said. There was no claim of responsibility, but
Taliban-affiliated groups have been responsible for previous sectarian
atrocities in the same area.
Militants have attacked
inside Peshawar, a city of an estimated four million people, once a day, on
average, for the past five months, according to provincial government
statistics. That accounts for about half of the militant episodes across
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.
“It’s like Ricky Ponting
playing cricket,” said a senior security official in Peshawar, referring to a
former Australian cricketer known for his prolific scoring ability, and
speaking on the customary condition of anonymity.
The violence is partly a
product of military success. The Pakistani Army has been battling Taliban
militants in the mountains of the adjoining Khyber tribal district in recent
months. A smaller security operation is under way in Darra Adam Khel, a
district southwest of the city that is famed for its gunsmiths.
The fiercest fighting is
taking place in the Tirah Valley of Khyber, along the Afghan border, where the
military is arrayed against Mangal Bagh, a local warlord affiliated with the
Pakistani Taliban.
Helicopter gunships and
artillery attacked militant hide-outs in Khyber as part of an intense, weeklong
military assault that ended Thursday. Tribal authorities in Khyber said they
found the bodies of 20 militants in one village alone.
But the back draft of
those battles is being felt in the suburbs of Peshawar, where nervous residents
have reported sightings of militants who travel around on motorcycles, frequent
restaurants late at night and preach in local mosques.
Abdul Haleem, a building
contractor, said he received a surprise lecture on violence during morning
prayers at his local mosque recently. “A man stood up and, without the
permission of the imam, started preaching about the importance of jihad and its
rewards in the hereafter,” Mr. Haleem said during an interview at his house in
Hayatabad, the city’s wealthiest suburb.
“Later we found out that
he was a militant commander from Khyber,” he said.
Several police officers,
all speaking on the condition of anonymity, blamed the ambivalent attitude of
the newly elected provincial government, led by Imran Khan, a former cricket
star, for declining morale.
Mr. Khan’s
Tehreek-e-Insaf party favors talks with the Taliban over fighting, and his
officials frequently frame militant violence as a reaction to American drone
strikes in the tribal belt.
“What we need is a pat
on the back, not daily derision,” one senior official said. “If Khan says this
is not our war, then what does he think we are doing here sacrificing our
lives?”
Murad Saeed, a member of
Parliament from Mr. Khan’s party, rejected accusations that his party was soft
on militancy. “We only say that the use of force has been futile against
militancy, and now we should give a chance to a political solution,” Mr. Saeed
said in a telephone interview.
He said Pakistan’s
government first needed to address “the factors that spur our own people to
carry out violent acts.”
Some of the violence in
Peshawar this year has targeted members of the Shiite minority, and doctors in
particular. In January, Dr. Shah Nawaz Ali, an eye specialist at
Lady Reading Hospital, was shot dead outside his clinic, and another doctor in
Peshawar, Dr. Riaz Hussain Shah, a gastroenterologist, was killed.
Wealthy businessmen have
faced extortion demands. The owner of a truck transport company living in
Hayatabad said a militant demand for about $100,000 came to him in the form of a
letter thrown at his doorstep. The next day a Taliban commander phoned him. “He
warned me not to inform the police,” said the businessman, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity for safety reasons. “I have no option but to meet their
demand.”
The provincial police
chief, Ihsan Ghani, acknowledged that the situation was grave, but he insisted
that it was under control. “There is a clear and present danger,” Mr. Ghani
said in an interview. But, he added, police intelligence had quietly disrupted
several terrorist plots, and the authorities had arrested many militants.
The turmoil comes
against the backdrop of a broader political stasis in Pakistan. The prospect of peace talks with the Taliban
in neighboring Afghanistan has evoked mixed reactions among Pakistani
politicians.
Some, like Mr. Khan,
view such talks as a necessary first step out of a violent regional quagmire, a
move that would at once bring peace to Afghanistan and remove the justification
that spurs Pakistan’s militants.
But others view the
notion of talks with apprehension, fearing that they would only give the
Taliban time to conquer ground that would eventually have to be won back
through painful military operations, as the army did in the Swat Valley in
2009.
“We have yet to decide
who is our real enemy, and the Taliban are taking advantage of this confusion,”
said Afrasiab Khattak of the Awami National Party, which governed
Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa until the last election, when it won just one seat.
Some Pakistani officials
worry that the American withdrawal in Afghanistan in 2014 will embolden
Pakistan’s Taliban. A recent strategic assessment by the province’s Home and
Tribal Affairs Department, a copy of which has been obtained by The New York
Times, warns that it is a “fallacy” to assume that the American departure from
Afghanistan will end violence in Pakistan.
Instead, the document
warns, Pakistan’s Taliban could use the perceived victory in Afghanistan to
install “their own brand of Islam” in Pakistan.
“Our political
leadership is confused when it comes to the Taliban,” said one senior police
officer in Peshawar. “And that is undermining police morale and hindering us in
our job.”
Ihsanullah Tipu Mehsud and Ismail Khan reported
from Peshawar, and Declan Walsh from London.
