Pakistan's Taliban hurt but not cowed (News Feature)

By Nadeem Sarwar Apr 5, 2010, 15:28 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistan's Taliban militants and their al-Qaeda allies were hurt hard by the double blows of the security forces' recent offensives in the region near the Afghan border and stepped-up US drone attacks, but they are far from down.

In a brutal show of power and determination, gunmen dressed in uniforms of a paramilitary force on Monday attacked the fortified US consulate in a high security zone in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP).

The attackers fired rocket-propelled grenades at an armoured vehicle and a military post before four bombs - among them one car bomb - exploded near the consulate in a commando-style action.

The Taliban guerrilla fighters failed to enter the building, something that could have maximized the impact of the militant's attack.

But the fighting with Pakistani soldiers, which continued for around 20 minutes and left half a dozen people dead, sent chills down the spines of Peshawar residents, a city, that has seen meaningless killings of hundreds of civilians in bombings in recent months.

That attack was not the only item on the Taliban's schedule for what appears to be a day of terror and bloodshed.

Two hours before the Peshawar attack, a suicide bomber struck at a rally of secular and nationalist activists celebrating a decision to rename the province into Khyber Pakhtwankhwah in recognition of Pushto-speaking ethnic Pashtuns.

Forty-two people died and more than 80 were injured in the bombing at the gathering organized by the Awami National Party, a secular member of the NWFP's regional government which supports the offensive against Islamist insurgents. The party is also believed to be a staunch ally of the United States.

The attacks came as Pakistani security forces two weeks ago extended their operations into Orakzai, a tribal district near the Afghan border, fighting Islamist insurgents who fled the battlefields in neighbouring South Waziristan.

Together more than 1,100 militants died the two districts, both considered Taliban heartlands, making many believe that the militant's ability to strike has been substantially diminished.

The continued US drone strikes that eliminated hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters were thought to have further contributed to weakening the insurgents.

But the theory that Taliban are caught on the back foot is now being swiftly revised by analysts.

'The Taliban are not fully defeated by army operations, and these attacks show that they are kicking around and they attacked to reassert their presence,' said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a prominent Pakistani security analyst.

A strategic brief lull in militant attacks should not be interpreted as their defeat since they continue to replace their people when a cell or group is neutralized or captured, which takes some time, Rizvi said.

After a break of around one month, the Taliban carried out a series of strikes in the country's cultural hub of Lahore.

On a single day on March 12, the militants first carried out twin suicide bombings near an army base, killing 60 people and injuring more than 95.

Hours later, they exploded six back-to-back bombs in two residential areas, with no destruction but causing immense panic among the people.

Monday's attacks in Peshawar and Lower Dir district follow a similar pattern.

Pakistani authorities have repeatedly asserted their resolve to thrash the militants since they launched a fully fledged insurgency to impose Islamic sharia law in the country in 2007, but to no avail.

'We will fight the terrorists to the finish,' President Asif Ali Zardari told a joint session of the two houses of the national parliament Monday. 'We will not surrender this great nation to them. We will make peace with those who accept the writ of the government.'

Taliban accepting the writ of the government seems a remote possibility, anyway.

'They have shown that their capability to carry out coordinated attacks at various places,' Rizvi said. 'And the trend will continue for some years and will only end provided the situation in Afghanistan stabilizes.'