The Pakistani government has shut down NATO’s vital supply link to forces based in Afghanistan as the military has launched an offensive to clear the Taliban in a region just on the outskirts of the provincial capital of Peshawar. This is the second such operation launched in this area by the Pakistani military in six weeks. Clearly the first operation failed. Pakistan has closed the Khyber Pass to NATO convoys three times since September. The first closure was in protest of US airstrikes in the tribal areas. The second was due to the deteriorating security situation. These closures highlight what should be painfully obvious to anyone remotely following the situation in Pakistan: the government and military have lost control of not only the tribal areas, but large swaths of the Northwest Frontier Province as well. The Taliban is no longer bottled up in the small agencies of Bajaur and North and South Waziristan. They rule Swat and Shangla, and are poised to take control of Peshawar. Yet the Pakistani military is withdrawing an estimated two divisions of troops from the northwest to station then on the Indian front. The Taliban clearly has the initiative and the upper hand in the northwest. This is why the US is seeking alternative supply routes into Afghanistan. Click on the map of the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province at right. The government signed peace agreements in the red agencies/ districts (the military said Shangla was under Taliban control in October); purple districts are under de facto Taliban control; yellow regions are under Taliban influence. Map created by The Long War Journal.
