Writing From Mardan, Pakistan — Has the Pakistani government, after years of vacillation, finally gotten serious about eliminating the Taliban threat? Maybe.
For the first time since 9/11, Pakistan's army has begun a decisive military offensive to drive the Pakistani Taliban and other extremist groups out of South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal agencies that border Afghanistan.
This offensive follows a successful eight-week campaign to drive the Pakistani Taliban from the Swat Valley, where the army claims to have killed 1,500 militants and lost 134 officers and soldiers.
But it remains to be seen whether the government will be able to overturn the army's longtime support for the Taliban.
I recently interviewed dozens of refugees from the Swat fighting who have swamped this small town in the North-West Frontier Province. Many said they will not return home until the army has removed the Taliban there.
"We watched the army play games for two years, allowing the Taliban to take over the valley, allowing their radio stations to broadcast hate, allowing them to terrorize us," a man from Mingora in the Swat district, told me. "We will go back when the leaders of the Taliban are dead."
The Swat refugees are worried because the government is pressuring them to return home even though not a single Taliban leader was killed in the offensive -- they all managed to escape.
On June 15, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, who leads the army, declared unequivocally that the Taliban chiefs were "not fighting for Islam" and "must be eliminated."
The army has now deployed in South Waziristan, where Baitullah Mehsud, head of the Pakistani Taliban's ruling council, along with Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders are believed to be hiding.
This is hopeful news. But the army will have to take a different path than in the past. Since 2005, the army and its intelligence services have periodically launched offensives against the Taliban along the Afghan border, only to pull back, holding talks and conducting cease-fires.
In the North-West Frontier Province, in the autonomous tribal agencies known as the Federal Administered Tribal Agencies, or FATA, the army has failed to protect pro-government tribal elders and chiefs. More than 300 were executed by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, while hundreds more fled the region with their families. Just recently, a tribal leader who had switched sides from the Taliban to the government was shot dead by the Taliban.
