In a statement released to mark the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks on the United States, the movement said the West was leading a ‘crusade’ in Afghanistan.
It (West) had not realized that there were “so many guardians of Islam who will guard God’s religion and its values,” said the statement e-mailed to the medias.

The Taliban is battling the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (Nato) soldiers who are fighting alongside special US forces in Afghanistan. Trusted sources say the Taliban controls half of Afghanistan and has already spread widely into Pakistan.

The situation in the NWFP is extremely worrisome and US coalition partners were warned in plain words that the Frontier province was on a fast track of breaking away from Pakistan because of Islamabad’s blind following of Washington’s war on terror.

Since the ouster of President Parvez Musharaf the US has decided to attack the NWFP with drones that releases bombs into targets while occasionally US forces would fly helicopters over the region to attempt attacks against suspected Taliban commands. Such attacks have led to the death of far too many civilians and have raised the ire of the Pakistani army which has now been given the right to fight the US army back.

While it is not known how and when the Pakistani army will retaliate against US attacks on its soil, the Taliban is making inroads in Pakistan and this seems inevitable despite the US incursions.

The influence of the Taliban had grown tremendously and extended to many parts of the settled districts of the province giving the movement the capacity to create trouble in the districts of Charsadda, Mardan and Hangu, which surround the provincial capital Peshawar.

In the south and north of Peshawar, their presence is felt, thus, creating alarms for the authorities. In the month of July, the PML-N representatives, led by Mian Shahbaz Sharif, too, expressed their complete dissatisfaction over the ongoing policy on the war on terror and urged that there was a dire need for making a national policy to meet the growing threat of extremism and terrorism.

The Taliban has grouped itself into a large force with the help of Mujahideen forces that has left Iraq and Lebanon and have joined groups headed by Taliban and Osama Bin Laden’s former Generals.

They have brought with them new techniques which they deployed, sometimes with Iranian expertise says the American intelligence agency CIA, in Iraq and this has given the Taliban a far greater aggressiveness than expected. The regrouping of the Mujahideen forces under the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan is now creating heavy pressure on the Nato forces and the US special forces.

It is not easy to target the Taliban and its allies as they are more involved in deadly hit and run attacks, ambushes and road side or suicide bombings that are proving more effective than direct confrontation with coalition forces.

However, the Taliban has recently proven its worth when it took on US forces in bases near Pakistan and forced the US soldiers to retreat. The same tactic was used against British and Canadian forces in the past two years and it worked. The US is now trying to beat the Taliban to this tactic by using massive air and land power and has transferred 8000 Marines from Iraq to Afghanistan for this purpose.

With the buildup for a massive war ongoing, the Taliban is confident that it will survive the US aggression as it calls it and will free its land from foreign occupation.

On the other hand, Washington is trying to woo Pakistan to join the US forces and the Nato in operations against the Taliban. The Pakistan army is currently involved in a cleanup operation in parts of Northern Pakistan but it has yet to decide if it will join western and Afghan forces in operations against the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The US attacks in Pakistan, condemned by France recently, has alienated the Pakistani military and has forced a US ally Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to support a statement by Pakistan’s Chief of Staff General Parvez Kiyani regarding the US attacks on Pakistani soil.

Kiyani is suspected to be working hand in hand with the US military on how to deal with the Taliban problem in Afghanistan but is apparently not willing to allow US forces to either join Pakistani forces or carry out solo operations on Pakistani soil.

The reason why Kiyani and Gilani are expressing their anger against the US for its attacks – a more recent one has caused the death of 13 people in Waziristan on Friday 12^th September – is the civilian death toll, sources told WFOL.

Pakistan`s military commanders resolved to defend the country`s borders without allowing any external forces to conduct operations inside Pakistan.

The military commanders expressed this resolve on the first day of the two-day Corps Commanders conference, which began here on Thursday at the General Headquarters. Army Chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani chaired the all-important conference against the backdrop of the new strategic developments taking place in the region.

General Kayani has already rebuffed the American policy of including Pakistani territory in their operations against terrorists and those hiding in the areas bordering Afghanistan. Reports say that the US President Bush has allowed air raids from drones and ground operations in Pakistani areas including FATA.

Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has termed General Kayani`s response to the Americans as a true reflection of the government`s policy. The military commanders are understood to have discussed the implications of the American attacks inside Pakistan and took stock of the public feeling.

These however will not curb the resolve of the Taliban both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan. The Taliban movement has survived the US invasion in 2001 by disbanding its troops which eventually re-integrated the civilian populations but in the long run, they re-joined the Taliban when the US and the Nato proved incapable of rebuilding the country.

The Taliban may use the same tactic – that is simply vanishing in the thin air around the huge mountains in Pakistan and Afghanistan – and leave the Nato-US forces to fight the wind once again. Knowing the lack of patience of the US to search and kill, the Taliban may then regroup itself and launch suicide attacks and ambushes once the US forces settles down permanently in Pakistan and Afghanistan. (with reports from news agencies)

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