A workshop on ‘Regional Aspects of Militancy’ was held at the Area Study Centre, University of Peshawar, Pakistan on Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Dr. Azmat Hayat Khan, the University's vice-chancellor and director of the Area Study Centre, chaired the workshop and welcomed the invitees who included retired civil and military officers, diplomats, journalists, university faculty and research scholars. The American expert on the region, Dr. Barnett Rubin, in his talk said that one reason for the growing insurgency in Afghanistan was the unhappiness of the Afghan people with their government, but even then it cannot be described as a national liberation movement. He also said that the insurgency in Afghanistan was confined to only one ethnic group and that too in rural areas. He said there were ethnic and local reasons for the insurgency in certain areas, and the conflict in Afghanistan was magnified in the past and even now due to outside interference. The Taliban may not have been aware of al-Qaeda plans for launching the September 11 attacks, but they harbored Osama bin Laden, who claimed responsibility for those terrorist strikes. He said the Taliban were able to cross the Pakistani-Afghan border and launch attacks on U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan. The presence of transnational groups of militants is a threat. The U.S. scholar expressed dissatisfaction over the lack of coherence in the spending of donors’ money for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and for meeting the needs of the Afghan people, and referred to rampant corruption in the country. He explained that in a hypothetical scenario of the U.S. and NATO withdrawing from Afghanistan under a deal with the Taliban guaranteeing that Afghanistan would not be used for international terrorism, Russia, Iran and India might see it as a realignment rather than a peace process, and could see the U.S. going back to aligning itself with Pakistan, and they might respond in their own way.

Ahmad Rashid, journalist and author of several books on the region, suggested the need for improved ties between Kabul and Islamabad to jointly fight militancy and extremism as Pakistan’s economic well-being is dependent on peace in Afghanistan. Rashid contended that India’s role as spoiler of Pakistani-Afghan relations is hugely exaggerated. He supported the idea of joint Indo-Pakistani dialogue on Afghanistan to reconcile differences. He asked the Pakistani Army to stop giving sanctuaries to the Afghan Taliban, support political reforms in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and share intelligence on issues related to the threat by extremists with political parties. Political parties should take ownership of the war on terror. He underscored that the Taliban were displaying brutality which was not part of Pashtun culture, the Taliban were an aberration and said that brutalization did not start in 2001 – the Soviet invasion killed 1.5 million Afghans.

Afrasiyab Khattak of the Awami National Party and NWFP president said that critical evaluation of past policies will help us to corrective measures. Pakistani society was militarized with active U.S. support, and Talibanization was an extension of Pakistani society’s militarization. Pakistan should close down sanctuaries on its soil for militants fighting in Afghanistan, while Afghanistan should address Pakistan’s concerns about anti-Pakistan activities in Kandahar and Jalalabad. He said that the NWFP government’s policy of negotiating with the militants was working. He disclosed that one of the major demands of the militants in Swat was withdrawal of the army, particularly the army’s role as policing the streets. Afghans are averse to the presence of foreign forces. Khattak asked Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai to support the Pakistan government’s efforts of reforms in FATA.

Former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand said the weakness of the Afghan regime was not the cause of the insurgency. “We have to look deeper; occupation is occupation, for good or for bad, and that leads to insurgency.” The Taliban would not agree to stop their attacks until the U.S. and NATO provide a timetable for the withdrawal of their troops from Afghanistan. He denied the presence of al-Qaeda/Taliban training camps in FATA. He argued that we have to look at the brutalization of Afghan society in totality; he referred to the killing of 1,500 prisoners in containers, the Qala-Jungi killings, prisons at Bagram, and Guantànamo. Dr. M. Anwar khan, former vice-chancellor of Peshawar University, said that measures should be adopted to increase the mutual understanding between the people of Pakistan and the U.S..

Rahimullah Yusufzai, journalist and expert on Afghanistan, pointed out the complexity of ethnic politics in the context of south-western Afghanistan, and said that the brutalization of Afghan society is due to foreign elements. The Taliban were brutal, he said, but so were the American and NATO forces in Afghanistan. In this connection he referred to the Musa Qala operation and others. Sarwar Momand, former President of the Peshawar Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said peace without regional cooperation is highly unlikely. Dr. Ijaz khan in his comments highlighted the independence of the judiciary in the context of Pakistan's current political crisis. Prof. Adnan, Chairman of the International Relations department, said U.S./NATO forces are failing to win hearts and minds in Afghanistan.