Via Spencer Ackerman, the Christian Science Monitor reports that Pakistan’s offensive against Taliban leaders on its territory has been far more extensive than we thought:
Pakistan has arrested nearly half of the Afghanistan Taliban’s leadership in recent days, Pakistani officials told the Monitor Wednesday, dealing what could be a crucial blow to the insurgent movement.
In total, seven of the insurgent group’s 15-member leadership council, thought to be based in Quetta, Pakistan, including the head of military operations, have been apprehended in the past week, according to Pakistani intelligence officials.
….Much about the arrests and Pakistan’s motives remain unclear, but they do reflect Pakistan’s evolving approach to the Afghan Taliban leadership inside its borders. “A year ago when this [Obama] administration was completing its first Afghanistan review and we asked the Pakistanis about the Afghan Taliban leadership operating from their country, they flatly denied it,” says Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst who led President Obama’s initial Afghanistan policy review. “Now not only do they say there are senior Taliban leaders in their country, but they are frankly taking action against them.”
Pakistan’s motivations are still murky, but they’re obviously pretty serious about this one way or another. And even if they’re doing this only because they want to make sure they have a seat at the table when it comes time to negotiate a peace settlement with the Taliban, that’s probably OK too. After all, no settlement is worth much of anything unless Pakistan is OK with it.
So far, Obama’s Afghanistan strategy seems to be paying steady dividends. I’m still not especially optimistic about our chances of accomplishing much of lasting significance there, but things have certainly gone better than I expected. Stay tuned.
