Pakistan triple tragedy of Taliban conflict, refugees, indifference

Pakistan's unruly Northwest Frontier province has traditionally been a lawless no-go zone for the central government. The region bordering on Afghanistan, and connected ethnically and in sympathy to events in that country, has nurtured a militant Islamic resistance which is marinated in a culture of guns, drugs, and chaos; the perfect conditions in which the fundamentalist Taliban thrive. Regions like the picturesque Swat valley and cities like Peshawar, have never coexisted with the central government, no matter who is in power in Islamabad, the capital.

History serves as a guide. During the British Raj, and long before the 1947 partition of Pakistan from greater India, these areas were viewed as wild and woolly, and only then tenuously held by the British through besieged forts and isolated outposts.

When the Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan in 1979, a few million refugees mostly ethnic Pashtuns, fled into this part of Pakistan. During the 1980s Pakistan hosted the world's largest refugee communities, but nonetheless turned a blind eye to a myriad militant Islamic factions who fought the Soviets but later turned on each other and were equally manipulated by Pakistani military intelligence the ISI. While multinational military forces toppled Afghanistan's Taliban regime in 2001 after it was linked to the September 11th terrorist attack in America, in recent years there has been a resurgence of the fundamentalists, which threatens the government in Kabul.

Now that the Obama Administration has reinforced the American troop numbers in Afghanistan, the United States is viewing Afghanistan and Pakistan as AFPAK, a singular security challenge. Washington is entering into a dangerous web of regional entanglements; the crisis is spreading and spilling over into already unstable Pakistan. The redefined AFPAK conflict will severely test the mettle of this already teetering government and civil society. Though Pakistan's civilian government is inherently weak and beset by divisions, the Pakistan military remains mostly cohesive, and capable of controlling Taliban, at least for now.

The military offensive in the Swat, while knocking the militants off balance, has tragically displaced 2.5 million people according to the U.N. Calling the situation “volatile and fluid,” U.N. officials say the fighting has internally displaced 2.5 million people, mostly women and children fleeing the fighting.

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