While we certainly don't put it past the Taliban to blow up a bunch of schoolchildren to take out a couple of politicians, we note that this attack comes in the normally (relatively) peaceful north of the country, where the Taliban were never popular and still have little following. News accounts frequently forget that the real power in Afghanistan's hinterlands remain the warlords who terrorized the country in a decade and more of internecine ethnic and sectarian bloodshed after the Soviets pulled out, and still have their deep personal grudges—despite the best efforts of Karzai and the US to broker peace (and maintain the fiction of a centralized Afghan state). Baghlan, the scene of today's horrific attack, lies within the domain of regional warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, who (as we have noted) has long been in an oft-bloody power struggle with local rivals. We'd like to know where the apparent targets of this blast stood vis-à-vis this conflict. Note that the Taliban explicitly deny responsibility this time, and raise the possibility of Mujahedeen accounts-settling. From Reuters Nov. 6, emphasis added:

Within days of the 9-11 attacks, media speculation started that al-Qaeda was seeking nuclear weapons. Now it is starting to look like US actions could make that a self-fulfilling prophecy. Washington imposed sanctions on both Pakistan and India after their 1998 nuclear tests. Those sanctions were both lifted immediately after 9-11 as the US prepared for war in the region. US military aid to Pakistan continues—despite the regime's complicity in nuclear proliferation to rogue states, and despite the fact that Musharraf threatened to use nuclear weapons in both the 2002 crisis with India and the Kargil crisis of 1999 (when he was just armed forces chief—his coup came in the immediate aftermath of Kargil). Using Pakistan as a proxy state in the GWOT has only inflamed jihadist sentiment there, providing a convenient justification for Musharraf to seize still greater power—which will further inflame the jihadis in a vicious cycle. And it's all rendered even more ironic by the incestuous relationship between Musharraf's own security forces and the jihadis. It isn't difficult to see where all this is leading. On Oct. 29—before Musharraf's auto-golpe—Newsweek found, with good reason, that Pakistan is the "most dangerous" country on earth:

Five people were killed and six others wounded when a missile—allegedly fired from a US drone—hit a suspected militant compound in the restive North Waziristan region of Pakistan, near the Afghan border Nov. 2. Residents said a pilotless US drone fired two missiles into the compound in Dandi Darpakhel in the outskirts of Miran Shah, the regional capital. At least two of the wounded were said to be of Uzbek origin. The casualties were given first aid and taken away by men associated with a militant commander from South Waziristan. Militants sealed off the entire area and did not allow anyone to get to the compound. Some residents put the death toll at 10 and the number of wounded at 12. The compound was located near the madrassa of Waziristan Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is said to have close ties to Osama bin Laden. The Pentagon denied the US military was responsible for the missile strike. A spokesman for the CIA, which operates drones as well, declined to comment. (NYT; Dawn, Pakistan, Nov. 3)

Japan has ordered the withdrawal of its two ships supporting US-led operations in Afghanistan following the government's failure to agree a deal with the opposition to extend the mission beyond the end of its mandate on Nov. 1. The administration of Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda has said it would try to pass new legislation to allow a more limited mission. "The government will make its utmost effort... to resume an important mission in the Indian Ocean," chief Cabinet spokesman Nobutaka Machimura said. Japan has refuelled coalition warships in the Indian Ocean since 2001.

Pakistani security forces backed up by helicopter gunships engaged militants at the madrassa of extremist cleric Maulana Fazlullah at Kabal in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province Oct. 26. The gun-battle apparently began when a patrol was fired on, and ended when security forces seized what was described as a militant training camp near the seminary. The cleric, known as "Maulana Radio" for his illegal broadcasts urging Taliban-style rule, is thought to have 4,500 armed followers. The fighting was in the Swat district, where a bomb attack on a truck carrying members of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary near Mingora one day earlier killed 17 militiamen and three civilians, damaging several shops.

Pakistani soldiers and tribal fighters in North Waziristan are observing an unofficial ceasefire while tribesmen bury their fallen killed in air raids. At least 250, including dozens of soldiers, have died and thousands have fled in five days of fierce battles. Residents say up to 50 were killed in Oct. 9 air strikes, some while shopping at a village bazaar. (AlJazeera, Oct. 10) The fighting pitted militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the Pashtun tribal force led by Baitullah Meshud against Pakistani army and paramilitary forces. A jirga of leading North Waziristan clerics led by a former member of the National Assembly, Maulana Nek Zaman Haqqani, following day-long negotiations received the bodies of 30 slain soldiers from the jihadis and handed them over to military officials. The clashes, centered on the Mir Ali area, started after the Uzbek fighters ambushed a security forces convoy Oct. 6. (Rediff, India, Oct. 10)

A suicide bomber in burqa killed 13 people at a police checkpoint Oct. 1 at Bannu in northwest Pakistan on the Afghan border. (AGI, Oct. 1) The following day, a suicide bomber killed 12 Afghan police on a bus in Kabul—the second such attack in the capital in four days. Twenty-eight soldiers and two civilians were killed in a similar attack on a bus on Sept. 29. (Reuters, Oct. 2)

The Politics of Militarism and Islamist Extremism in Pakistan

by Beena Sarwar, Himal Southasian