NightWatch

For the Night of 28 April 2009

North Korea-South Korea: South Korean authorities again urged North Korea to free a South Korean detained for almost a month at the Kaesong joint industrial estate, warning that the issue could jeopardize the future of the project. The employee of Hyundai Asan, who developed the estate, has been held since 30 March for criticizing the North’s political system.

“North Korea must understand the seriousness of this issue and show a positive attitude toward its resolution,” Unification Minister Hyun In-Taek told journalists. Similar situations could arise for any firm and employee at the estate, he said, calling it “a very serious matter which will have very important consequences for the stable development of Kaesong.”

Yesterday, South Korea appeared to be putting the best face on last week’s 20 minute meeting. Today, North Korean media blasted the US and ROK for training exercises held in January (sic) and insulted South Korean President Lee accusing him of bringing the countries to the brink of war – a favorite accusation of late. There are no credible indicators the North wants less tension in the relationship.

Pakistan: Armed militants in Pir Baba area of Buner District took hostage more than 71 security officials after inviting them to talks in a local mosque near the famous shrine, a source from the district told The News. They included the station house officer (SHO) of the Pir Baba police station, his 20 constables and around 50 personnel of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary (FC).

This action was apparently the first retaliation for the start of government security operations in Buner.

Today the government took action to drive Pakistani Taliban from Buner, using air strikes and ground forces. Last week, the militants faked their exit from the area, Dawn News reported, citing the Director-General of Inter Services Public Relations. The Director said the Taliban had ignored warnings to vacate the area and had been kidnapping young boys to join the Taliban.

Helicopter gunships attacked Taliban positions and the Taliban blew up the main bridge in Buner’s Ambala area, after the Pakistani Taliban ignored government warnings to return to Swat District. Interior Minister Rehman Malik said, Reuters reported. Malik said around 450 Taliban militants entered Buner on 27 April.

In Baluchistan Province, probable Baluchi separatists blew up a railway track near the town of Sariab, just outside of Quetta, the provincial capital, Aaj TV reported. Sariab is located on highway N-25, used to transport supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The Baluchis regularly attack the railroads and pipelines in the province. They take a few hours to repair. Most of the attacks register that the Baluchis are unhappy. Only one attack was serious. They nearly assassinated Musharraf during a visit to a Corps headquarters with lucky hits by mortar fire on the golf course. Lousy Pakistan Army security for the Chief of Army Staff and President, what.

These Baluchi operations have almost nothing to do with instability in the Pashtun north. They are not portents of the final days of Pakistan, just more of the same. The railroad tracks to Gwadar Port in western Baluchistan have been blown up so often that it almost constitutes scheduled maintenance.

Comment: Pakistan is in the news and the prophets of doom are legion. The state is not failing, but it is suffering from some decisions that have backfired. Chief of Army Staff General Kayani was among those who supported the cession of national authority to the militants and imams in Swat, as a tradeoff for peace and disarmament. When the militants ignored the terms of the deal, and in response to outside pressure, the government has been roused to take some action, primarily to enforce the original deal, thus far.

General Kayani’s warning to the militants on 25 April about extending their “writ” was only about militant expansion into adjacent districts, not about the cession of authority to Swat. There are no big operations for Swat District at this time evident in press reporting.

The start of the Army and Frontier Corps operations supported by air strikes does not signify much of an offensive. For one thing, the preparation time appears to be far too brief to prepare the battlefield with competent intelligence. The purpose, literally, is to force the militants back on the government approved reservation in Swat District.

The government in Islamabad is not in danger of falling to a militant uprising, not for a few years at least. Using terror and the preachings of fundamentalist imams, the militants have been successful in forcing the government to negotiate over local jurisdiction. This process is likely to continue.

The effect of the security operations will be to channel the Islamists to put more pressure on a weak National Assembly to pass more bills authorizing the enforcement of Sharia, and not take the law into their own hands. The result will be the same: the spread of strict Quranic observances enforced by Islamist enforcers, instead of the national or local police. The difference is the spread will be under color of law. That is the primary implication of Kayani’s warning because he has only promised to act so as to back law enforcement, not undo the acts of the parliament.

In instability analysis, the government writ is always weakest in the peripheral areas, in the border marches and among the politically disenfranchised. The Swat District regulations are proof of both wings of this precept.

Second, a weak government always tries to buy time by ceding authority that it has a constitutional right to enforce, provided it has forces it can rely on. This is always an expedient to gain time to marshal resources that will enable the government to rescind the cession later. Pakistan is also proof of this precept.

The emergence of instability directed towards Islamabad in the Pashtun border agencies is not new, but it is a bit more intense. The big difference is in the government and military response to that unrest, which has been unprecedented even for past weak civilian governments. It raises serious but not fatal questions.

The normal response to a de facto autonomy declaration by a district would be to use the Army, not just the paramilitary police forces, to preserve the integrity of the state by force, not to make de facto secession de jure. The government does not seem to have that option.

The Army under Kayani apparently declined to participate two months back because of the likelihood of high losses and its cultural disinclination to shoot Pakistani citizens, according to press reporting. Kayani appears to be a good soldier. About the only justification for Army timidity in the face of a local insurrection is the likelihood that the Army itself would fracture during such operations.

The Army position left the elected leaders with no choice but to try to buy time by creating a temporary power sharing arrangement that would stabilize local law and order conditions in Swat until the government could assess its options and the loyalty of its security forces. That is where we are today.

Today’s operations are mostly a show of force, a demonstration. Pakistan has no joint doctrine; the air attacks are isolated pin pricks that annoy more than suppress the insurgents; there has not been enough time for adequate battlefield preparation. Kayani has not had enough time to rebuild the Army.

Inspector General of the Frontier Corps Major General Khan should get a hero’s medal for taking on the task of upholding the honor and rights of the federal government using his rag tag paramilitary forces.

In sum, the government is a mess, but it is not collapsing or in danger of an Islamist overthrow. Pakistan is not a failed state but it is experiencing another test of its fundamental nature. The problem with international press coverage is that it conflates the darkest and bleakest future for Pakistan with the present. The worst case has not yet arrived, by a long shot.

Afghanistan: Update. The UK Telegraph and Xinhua reported yesterday (27 April) five teachers and 40 pupils were overcome by fumes during a ceremony at a girl’s school in Charikar, Parwan Province, in the Tajik heartland. Afghan officials said they were awaiting the results of blood tests to determine what had happened, but there were unconfirmed local reports a bottle had been thrown into the playground beforehand.

Dr. Abdullah Fahim, a spokesman for the public health ministry, said: "For the time being, it seems to be airborne poisoning. But it's not confirmed yet what the actual reason is."

One teacher at Sadiqi Padshah School in Charikar, who did not wish to be named, said the whole school had been standing in the playground listening to staff speeches when students began to collapse. "We didn't know what was happening, all the children just went down and we took them to hospital." Victims were treated for severe headaches and streaming eyes after the attack on Sunday morning, 40 miles north of Kabul, but the provincial governor said all had made a full recovery.

This could be the first successful gas attack in Afghanistan. Last year Taliban on motorcycles threw acid in the faces of several girls walking to school.

Somali pirate patrol: The Russian anti-submarine ship Admiral Panteleyev captured a suspected pirate craft with 29 pirates on board off the coast of Somalia, Russian news agencies reported on 29 April, citing defense ministry sources. Admiral Panteleyev seized the pirate ship 15 miles off the coast of Somalia at 1212 GMT on Tuesday, the Interfax and RIA Novosti news agencies reported.

"Seven Kalashnikov rifles, various pistols and an aluminum ladder were discovered during a search of the ship," RIA Novosti quoted the source as saying. Satellite navigation equipment and a large amount of ammunition were also seized. "This allows us to assume that this group of pirates undertook two unsuccessful attempts to seize the TF Commander tanker with a Russian crew that was traveling through this region yesterday," RIA quoted the source as saying.

This is tonight’s good news.

End of NightWatch for 28 April.