Pakistan: Nukes & The Taliban

Besides the great news that the State Department’s blog, DipNote, has passed five million page views — how many of those hits do you think come from Hillary’s dedicated supporters like so many of us at No Quarter? – there’s this important story at the blog: “Question of the Week: How Best Can the International Community Support Security in Pakistan?”

Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons: The Financial Times reports that President Obama’s assurances last night in the press conference — that besieged country’s nuclear weapons are “in safe hands” — have merit.

Pakistan’s senior civil and military officials are sharing tightly held information about the country’s nuclear weapons programme with western countries in a bid to allay fears about the security of warheads in the face of a Taliban advance.

Pakistani officials presented this as a move to satisfy the west that its weapons would not fall into Taliban hands. “We have renewed our pledge to keep our nuclear weapons safe,” said a senior Pakistani official. The briefings were aimed, he said, at “reassuring” the international community that there were adequate safety measures “to keep a complete lid on our weapons”.

On Wednesday night, the Pakistani army claimed it had halted the latest Taliban incursion in the Buner district, 100km north-west of Islamabad, after two days of fighting. At dawn on Wednesday, the army, which has been accused in the west of failing to challenge the militants, airlifted troops behind Taliban lines and, it claimed, forced them to retreat.

“We have successfully blocked the Taliban advances and confined them just to a pocket,” Rehman Malik, the interior minister, said.

The Taliban’s territorial gains beyond Pakistan’s border regions in recent months and the lack of resistance put up by the country’s army have raised fears – particularly in India – that nuclear weapons might fall into the hands of religious extremists.

Although the whereabouts of Pakistan’s weapons are secret, analysts say that some are placed far from the Indian border to allow Islamabad adequate response time in the event of an attack from its old enemy, and fellow nuclear power, India.

Western diplomats said yesterday a Taliban advance on Islamabad threatened to bring militants perilously close to some of Pakistan’s main nuclear installations. But they doubted militants were capable of overwhelming heavily protected installations.

At the weekend, Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, described the toppling of the Pakistani government and capture of nuclear weapons as “unthinkable”.

US officials in Islamabad have assured that the threat of “loose nukes” is small.

Western diplomats say the nuclear programme resides in a “ringfenced” part of the military under the command of a well-respected general and protected from rogue elements within the army that might seek to capture a weapon. Although improvements in the locks and decoupling of weapons systems have been made, Pakistan has not complied with the high level of security recommended to it.

Worries over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons date back to 2004 when the proliferation network of Abdul Qadeer Khan, founder of the nuclear programme, came to light.

One of the dangers identified by the international community was that one of AQ Khan’s scientists might helpextremists gain a “dirty bomb”. Since then, the Pakistani military has tightened monitoring of individual scientists and introduced new inventory systems to track individual components of the bombs.

Some analysts say the greatest threat to nuclear security is from within the army itself. … Read the rest of the section on the military vulnerability.

There are differing views from expert bloggers. For one perspective, check out Larry’s fellow guest on Sunday’s John Batchelor Show, Bill Riggio, who writes for and maintains the Long War Journal, a remarkable blog that tracks every significant story coming out of Pakistan.

For a contrasting perspective, check out Juan Cole’s Informed Comment (h/t PM317) here and here (“Pakistan Crisis and Social Statistics”).

Here’s an example of the differing perspectives. In “Pakistani Army Takes Capital of Buner, Pushing Back Taliban Advance; Obama Considering More Aid, Cole wrote:

[...]

On Wednesday morning, it was announced that the Pakistani military had taken control of Dagar, the capital of Buner district. Fighting remained heavy in the area, with 70 militants claimed killed and another 350 or so still holding out in parts of the district.

The operation in Buner was launched after Pakistani intelligence intercepted a telephone call between Pakistani Taliban leader Mawlana Fazlullah and one of his commanders indicating that their plan was to feign a withdrawal from Buner and then to launch a surprise takeover. The Tehrik-i Taliban-i Pakistan (TTP) stands accused of killing or kidnapping local NWFP security personnel and kidnapping adolescent boys from villages for induction into the TTP paramilitary.

High Obama administration officials appear to have worked themselves into a frenzy about events in Malakand, and propose dealing with it by giving Islamabad more money more quickly than planned and also training Pakistani troops in counter-insurgency. Some US officials suspect duplicity on the part of the government of Pakistani President Asaf Ali Zardari. I take it that means they think the Pakistani military is sanguine about the spread of Talibanism in Malakand because the Pakistani Taliban might be useful in projecting Pakistani influence in the southern Pushtun areas of Afghanistan, which Islamabad considers its “strategic depth.” …

In “Pakistan Crisis and Social Statistics,” Cole asserts that the Obama administration and Western media are being hysterical:

Readers have written me asking what I think of the rash of almost apocalyptic pronouncements on the security situation in Pakistan issuing from the New York Times, The Telegraph, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in recent days

Cole repeatedly minimizes the capabilities of the Taliban in both articles.

In contrast, Riggio writes in “Taliban still in control in Dir”:

The Taliban are in control of much of the northern district of Dir despite claims by senior Pakistani officials that the region was secured after a day’s fighting.

The Pakistani military operation, which began on April 26, focused on the Madain region in the southern portion of the district of Dir. The Madain region hosts the home town of Sufi Mohammed, the pro-Taliban cleric who is behind the Malakand accord, the peace agreement that established sharia in Malakand, Dir, Chitral, Swat, Shangla, Buner, and Kohistan and put an end to military operations in Swat.

“The government’s writ seems non-existent for nearly 20km from the southern tip of the district,” the BBC reported. Security checkpoints have been abandoned in many regions outside of Timergara, the main city in Lower Dir. The Taliban often patrol the region and establish checkpoints to monitor traffic.

The Taliban are in control of the Chakdara-Talash region and the main road that connects Dir to the Taliban hotbed of Kabal, a sub-district in Swat. This region is used to allow Taliban forces in the Bajaur Tribal agency to link up with their brethren in Swat. Dir also borders Afghanistan, and serves as a conduit for Taliban forces transiting the border.

The reports from Dir conflict with triumphant statements made by Pakistani political and military officials on April 27, just one day after the operation began. Interior Minister
Rehman Malik claimed Dir was under complete control of the security forces. Army Spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the military successfully completed the Dir operation and claimed 75 Taliban fighters and 10 security personnel were killed during the fighting.

But the Taliban have disputed Abbas’ claim that 75 fighters, including a commander named Maulana Shahid, was killed. A Taliban spokesman claimed Shahid was alive, and that only four Taliban fighters were killed. The military often inflates Taliban casualties and claims senior leaders are killed. These leaders more than often appear in the media and mock the Army.

The Pakistani military has relied on artillery and helicopter and air strikes to target the Taliban, and rarely can confirm enemy casualties. The heavy-handed tactics result in villages being leveled and the alienation of the civilian population.

The military and government’s claims of a quick victory in Dir are disputed by Pakistani civilians on the ground.

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My inclination is to stick with Hillary’s concerns as well as those expressed by Bill Roggio at the Long War Journal. Roggio is a frequent guest on John Batchelor’s program. Check our site on Sundays for promos of the show, and Larry Johnson’s regular appearances.