Al Qaeda’s Newest Triggerman, Baitullah Mehsud

Sami Yousafzai and Ron Moreau write an informative article for Newsweek about Al Qaeda’s wewest triggerman, Baitullah Mehsud, who was also recently was appointed the head of the newly formed Taliban Movement in Pakistan, a loose alliance of jihadist organizations in the tribal agencies by a council of militant leaders from the tribal agencies and neighboring areas. If Mullah Omar is the head of the Afghanistani Taliban, then Baitullah Mehsud is his equivalent in Paksistan. Recently, Baitullah Mehsud is being blamed for most of the suicide bombings in Pakistan, including Benazir Bhutto's assassination. This Newsweek article examines his rise and the possibility of his forces killing Bhutto.

Musharraf told a press conference last Friday that the tribal leader was behind most if not all of the 19 suicide bombings in Pakistan, including the two aimed at Bhutto, in the past three months. "He is the only one who had the capacity," says one Afghan Taliban with close connections to Mehsud, Al Qaeda and Pakistani militants.... Pakistani and U.S. authorities now fear that Baitullah, encouraged by the chaos that followed Bhutto's assassination, will try to wreak more havoc before the rescheduled Feb. 18 national elections.

The article goes on to detail how was he able to assassinate Bhutto.

Baitullah and his Qaeda allies had laid out remarkably intricate plans for killing Bhutto, who was a champion of secular democracy and a declared enemy of the jihadists. He says Baitullah and Al Qaeda's No. 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri—along with Zawahiri's deputy, Mustafa Abu al-Yazid, Al Qaeda's new commander of military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan—had dispatched suicide-bomber squads to five cities: Karachi, Peshawar, Lahore, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, where she was killed.

His forces are able to move freely in Pakistan due to their tradecraft.

With a long tradition as smugglers, the tribals (most of whom, like Baitullah, take Mehsud as their surname) run an extensive nationwide trucking and transport network that reaches from the borderlands into teeming cities like Karachi, allowing Baitullah to easily move men and weapons throughout Pakistan.

Newsweek goes on to explain one of his recent attacks.

One of Baitullah's biggest successes came in August, when his men captured more than 250 Pakistani soldiers and paramilitary troops, who surrendered without firing a shot. Mehsud demanded the release of 30 jailed militants and the end of Pakistani military operations in the Mehsud tribal area as the price for the men's release. To show he meant business, he ordered the beheading of three of his hostages. Once again, Musharraf gave in.

The article ends with Baitullah's goals for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

In his few statements to the press, Baitullah has made his agenda frighteningly clear. He vowed, in a January 2007 interview, to continue waging a jihad against "the infidel forces of American and Britain," and to "continue our struggle until foreign troops are thrown out" of neighboring Afghanistan.

One point that Newsweek misses in this article even though they touch on it is the fact that Musharraf signed a peace deal with Baitullah in 2005 (which the article notes). However, what the article does not note is this is the reason we (and other governments) cannot negotiate with terrorists. These terrorists are no different than plane hijackers. They will always negotiate when their back is against the wall, but will later come back to reap havoc. If we allow them to persist or exist, they will continue to grow stronger and their actions will grow to a level of strategic or political importance, like the assassination of Bhutto.

Baitullah is waging war in Pakistan as part of Al Qaeda's overarching goal to create a Salafist Caliphate. This goal has not changed. What has changed is the location, which is now Pakistan and hopefully to include Afghanistan in the future since Iraq is now lost to Al Qaeda.

It appears we have won one battle, Iraq, in the Global War on Terror. We have prevented the re-establishment of another Caliphate in Afghanistan which shows Al Qaeda' inability to project their war over long lines of communication for prolonged periods of time. However, now they have internal lines of communication inside Pakistan that must be dealt with.

Musharraf is being put in a difficult position. He needs US help to close these lines of communication to save Pakistan; however, getting US assistance inside Pakistan further weakens his authority. As power hungry as Musharraf is, I believe he will default to the greater good of Pakistan even if it results in his downfall. He proved this clearly in the past when he overthrew Sharif in a coup. He proved it again when he assisted US forces in Afghanistan. He proved it by stepping down as the Army Chief and naming a pro-Western successor. He proved it again recently by allowing Bhutto to come back to Pakistan to seek re-election a third time to ensure a popular democracy would prevail in Pakistan.

While Baitullah was able to silence Bhutto, he will be unable to silence the growing democratic movement in Pakistan which is why his next major target of terror is the elections. Like Al Qaeda in Iraq, whose brutal tactics caused the people to turn on it, Baituallah's tactics will fail to the principles of freedom and democracy.