Why the Taliban Thrive in Pakistan

Jan. 23, 2007— -- New York Times reporter Carlotta Gall, while investigating the resurgence of the Taliban along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, was beaten up in her hotel in the border city of Quetta last month by Pakistani men who claimed to be policemen. "One of the men told me that… it was forbidden to interview members of the Taliban," she later wrote. Afterwards, all her sources were tracked and interviewed by the Pakistan military's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI).

Even in as rugged a place as northwest Pakistan it is rare for a journalist from a major international media organization to face such physical intimidation. Her experience underlies the sensitivity of what she was investigating. "The most explosive question," she recently wrote from Quetta, is whether "Pakistani intelligence agencies been promoting the Islamic insurgency?"

What is certain is that the Taliban, in conjunction with elements of Al Qaeda, are entrenching themselves in the mountainous tribal areas of Pakistan. From here they are recruiting and training a new generation of Taliban fighters and suicide bombers to attack Western and Afghan military and government targets across the border. Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid, author of the definitive book on the original Taliban, cited American and British intelligence sources when he wrote, "The Taliban are back, able to mobilize 8,000 soldiers, in a resurgence overseen by fewer than 100 hardcore Arab al Qaeda militants." Pakistani intelligence officials themselves upped the latter figure, admitting as many 2,000 foreign militants were in the tribal areas.

Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, an army general who won elections by keeping the main democratic party leaders in exile, has argued his thinly-disguised military regime is the best bulwark against both the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Pakistan.

There are many who beg to differ. The Afghan government of Hamid Karzai has openly accused Musharraf of actively supporting the Taliban and plunging Afghanistan into the worst violence it has seen since the overthrow of the original Taliban regime.

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri is a Bernard Schwartz fellow at the Asia Society