How the Taliban Thrives in Pakistan

 

In a January 2011 trip to Pakistan to produce this report on the recent spike in the region’s violence and bloodshed, Vice’s Suroosh Alvi heard over and over again the same sentiment: America’s war on terror is falling flat on its face as the country’s Taliban presence becomes more powerful than ever. The military conflict in neighboring Afghanistan, repeatedly cited by locals, sends a constant flood of guns, refugees, militants, and heroin flowing into Pakistan. Heroin is now actually cheaper than hashish in cities like Lahore, and the Kalashnikov culture, the foundation of which was laid 30 years ago when the CIA financed the mujahideen, is all-consuming.

To local observers, the fault of American foreign policy runs much deeper. The devastation brought by last year’s torrential floods has only strengthened the hold of the Pakistani Taliban, which continues to win the hearts and minds of locals as the Pakistani and American governments have struggled to provide aid. Meanwhile, Pakistani pundits point out, the millions that the U.S. spends on drone attacks in Afghanistan are helping to antagonize the region’s youth, fostering the next generation of militants.

In Peshawar, Rahimullah Yusufzai, one of Pakistan’s most respected journalists and one of the last people to interview Osama bin Laden, emphasized that the Taliban is taking advantage of local anger directed at American foreign policy.

“People have suffered, and they are willing to take revenge,” he said. “All villages have been attacked, women and children have been killed. So the Taliban can very easily motivate these families to supply suicide bombers.”

“The problems surrounding us here are not caused by Taliban or al Qaeda,” said Shabir Ahmed Khan, the provincial secretary of Jamaat-i-Islami, the country’s oldest religious party widely considered to be al-Qaeda friendly. “It’s the Western policies. If Westerners are going to kill and murder us, then we will have to fight back.” He continued, uninterrupted: “There’s a saying: ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend.’ America is playing the role of an enemy, and al Qaeda is the reaction to it. People need to realize this. No one has the right to dictate over a free country. They force their political and social policies on us, which they have no right to.”

This weekend’s killing of bin Laden outside of Islamabad by American and Pakistani forces will likely prove to be a boon for the Pakistani Taliban. Today, Talibani representatives in the country announced fresh threats against Pakistani government leaders, the Pakistan army and the United States.

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