I’ve just spent the day touring Pakistan’s northern border with Afghanistan, where I’ve been deeply impressed by what Pakistan’s military has achieved in its recent offensive against the Taliban. Travelling in the same territory where the young Winston Churchill fought (and wrote highly readable dispatches for the Daily Telegraph) during the British Army’s Malakand campaign in 1897, I found that the Pakistanis have succeeded in completely routing the Taliban and reclaiming control of the tribal territories that adjoin the Afghan border.
I will be writing in more detail about my tour of Pakistan’s front line later on, but my first impressions are of the discipline and commitment the Pakistanis have demonstrated in eradicating their own Taliban threat. In the past Pakistan has got a bad press for appearing to drag its feet over tackling the Islamist threat in its midst. But the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the return of the country to civilian rule has seen a radical change of outlook, especially after the Taliban made its ill-judged attempt to seize control of the Swat valley to the north of the country’s capital, Islamabad.
The military responded by launching an all-embracing assault on the Taliban’s stronghold in Bajaur province in the tribal territories. Two years later the Taliban’s fighters have either been killed, captured or fled back across the inhospitable moutain passes to Afghanistan. During the campaign, moreover, the Pakistani military has taken significant casualties of its own, with 150 dead and more than 600 injured, which is more than twice the casualties suffered by our own troops on the other side of the border during the same period.
With this level of sacrifice in future we should all think twice before accusing the Pakistanis of lack of effort.
I will be writing in more detail about my tour of Pakistan’s front line later on, but my first impressions are of the discipline and commitment the Pakistanis have demonstrated in eradicating their own Taliban threat. In the past Pakistan has got a bad press for appearing to drag its feet over tackling the Islamist threat in its midst. But the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the return of the country to civilian rule has seen a radical change of outlook, especially after the Taliban made its ill-judged attempt to seize control of the Swat valley to the north of the country’s capital, Islamabad.
The military responded by launching an all-embracing assault on the Taliban’s stronghold in Bajaur province in the tribal territories. Two years later the Taliban’s fighters have either been killed, captured or fled back across the inhospitable moutain passes to Afghanistan. During the campaign, moreover, the Pakistani military has taken significant casualties of its own, with 150 dead and more than 600 injured, which is more than twice the casualties suffered by our own troops on the other side of the border during the same period.
With this level of sacrifice in future we should all think twice before accusing the Pakistanis of lack of effort.
Comments
Post a Comment