BACKGROUND: The Pakistan Army has achieved mixed results in its operations in the tribal areas since October 2001 when the U.S. military intervened in neighboring Afghanistan to oust the Taliban regime and dismantle Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. In June 2002, the army lost 10 soldiers when it mounted a massive air and ground assault lasting several days in South Waziristan to hunt down suspected al-Qaeda fighters. A couple of Uzbeks that fled to Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban regime, were killed and one captured during that operation. Prior to that, some al-Qaeda suspects were captured in Pakistan\'s Kurram tribal district while trying to escape from the Tora Bora mountain range during the U.S. aerial bombing campaign in eastern Afghanistan in December 2001. Many others were able to avoid arrest due to help from sympathetic Pakistani tribesmen. The latest army operations in the tribal areas came in the wake of repeated allegations by U.S. and Afghan government officials that remnants of al-Qaeda and Taliban were regrouping in Pakistan\'s border districts and launching raids against U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan. The recent increase in the number of Taliban attacks which led to the killing of more than 300 people, including U.S. and Afghan soldiers and aid workers, put tremendous pressure on Pakistan to hunt down al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects hiding in the tribal borderlands. The military exercises that the army\'s Rapid Reaction Force conducted with the help of 24 helicopters in the first week of September were apparently organized to test the skills of the newly raised force. The soldiers did move into the remote North Waziristan tribal agency after landing at the Bannu airport but no suspect was arrested and there were no clashes with militants. North Waziristan and South Waziristan have been termed likely sanctuaries for al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives for over two years. Their Pashtun population is largely sympathetic to the Mainly Pashtun Taliban. The majority of Wazir, Mahsud and Dawar tribes that inhabit the two mountainous agencies consider bin Laden a hero of Islam. All this convinced the U.S. military authorities and Western media that one place where bin Laden and his lieutenants would be most welcome was the two Waziristans. Across the border from North and South Waziristan are three flashpoint Afghan provinces that have offered the most resolute resistance to the U.S. Army and its allies. Paktia, Paktika and Khost, inhabited by Pashtun tribes, are probably the most dangerous places in present-day Afghanistan for the American and Italian soldiers deployed there along with Afghan militias loyal to President Karzai’s government. There are daily missile attacks on U.S.-led coalition bases, ambushes of their convoys and explosions caused by improvised explosive devices.

IMPLICATIONS: Islamabad\'s decision to send troops to the tribal areas betrayed an anxiety on its part to not only address the concerns of the U.S. government but also to prepare its soldiers for any eventuality on its Western border with Afghanistan. The fact that the Pakistan Army’s elite commandoes conducted a major military operation on the eve of the second anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks in the U.S. also showed that the effort was intended to tell the Americans in particular and the international community in general that Islamabad was committed to the so-called war on terror. The recent border dispute with Afghanistan has rendered Pakistan’s western borders insecure and created a nightmare for its armed forces already confronted with a hostile India on the eastern border. This was a situation that Pakistan had sought to avoid all these years by seeking \"strategic depth\" in a friendly Afghanistan. The military raids in the tribal areas also stirred opposition among the fiercely independent tribal Pashtuns. There were protests against the raids in and outside the tribal areas and criticism was also recorded in the Parliament and the provincial assembly of the NWFP. The pro-Islamic MMA government in the NWFP complained that it wasn\'t consulted before sending troops to the area. Some of the religious leaders went to the extent to term the killed al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects as martyrs. By the same yardstick, they urged the faithful not to offer funeral prayers for the Pakistani soldiers killed in the operation because they took up arms against fellow Muslims. They said deployment of troops that served the interest of the U.S. and compromised Pakistan’s sovereignty was unacceptable. The military operations in the tribal areas hence contributed to the political polarization in the country. Lukewarm U.S. support for Pakistan’s stance on the Kashmir dispute and its below-expectation economic assistance to Islamabad made it difficult for President General Pervez Musharraf to justify his pro-Washington policies. Growing U.S. ties with India and the emergence of the so-called India-Israel-U.S. axis also weakened Musharraf’s hand and provided ammunition to his opponents at home to criticize him. The U.S. is seen as having little time for the concerns and needs of smaller countries like Pakistan. Moreover, an increasingly strong constituency points out that no amount of cooperation by Islamabad in netting al-Qaeda and Taliban suspects will satisfy the U.S.. Rather, it would whet America’s appetite to demand tougher action by Pakistan to kill or capture anyone remotely connected to al-Qaeda.

CONCLUSIONS: In the wake of the army’s operations in North and South Waziristan, many questions concerning the hunt for bin Laden and his lieutenants in the tribal areas remain unanswered. The U.S. failure to capture or kill bin Laden has led to frustration in Washington and prompted calls on Pakistan to do more in the search for the world’s most wanted man. America’ s war on terror will be deemed a failure until bin Laden is caught or eliminated. Having captured and delivered about 500 suspected al-Qaeda members to the U.S. during the past two years, Islamabad is being asked to net all those who might still be hiding in Pakistan. The biggest catch of them no doubt is going to be bin Laden. But his capture or death would also have political repercussions with Bush benefiting the most, and Musharraf possibly facing a backlash if bin Laden is killed or captured by Pakistani troops. This is a catch-22 situation with nerve-shattering outcomes.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Rahimullah Yusufzai is an executive editor of The News International, Pakistan. He is based in Peshawar, North-West Frontier Province, and is also a correspondent for the BBC, ABC News and Time magazine.