FORECAST

The resignation of hundreds of Pakistani police personnel due to fear of Taliban reprisals, and escalating tension along the Indo-Pak border eclipsing Islamabad’s focus on militancy along its Afghan border, may result in Pakistan’s NorthWest Frontier Province (NWFP) and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) falling to local Taliban control.

Reports emerging out of Pakistan’s restive NWFP indicate that hundreds of Pakistani police personnel have resigned their posts over growing fear of grisly Taliban and allied groups’ reprisals, including the head constable of the Swat district who quit after 16 years of service on the eve of his impending promotion.

Last month, militants belonging to the pro-Taliban Tehreek Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (“Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law”) sometimes referred to as Tehreek-e-Taliban, issued pamphlets demanding Pakistani police quit their posts, or face dire consequences, which have included gruesome public beheadings.  The pamphlet instructed complying police personnel to announce their resignations in local newspapers, both as a means of conveying the information to the Taliban and related groups and as an efficient means of spreading fear propaganda amongst the local populace.

Hundreds of local Pakistani police personnel have complied.  A senior police officer of the NWFP has confirmed that over 350 police personnel have quit their posts, although reports out of the area put the figure above 400.  In fact, the true figure may be three times as large, as roughly 1,200 police personnel names have been published thus far.  The staggering collapse of morale amongst the police and security personnel, frontline troops in Pakistan’s war against the Taliban and allied groups along the Pak-Afghan border, coupled with the loss of over a hundred local policemen killed in clashes with the militants over the past 10 months alone, has severely weakened Islamabad’s authority in the region.

In response, Pakistan’s Interior Ministry announced the killing of Tehreek-e-Taliban’s leader, Maulvi Fazlullah, deemed the highest ranking Taliban in the Swat valley, on Wednesday December 3rd – a claim denied by the spokesman of the banned militant outfit.

Despite the claim, confidential reports recently leaked indicate that after the Mumbai attacks, with India threatening to mobilize its forces along the Indo-Pak border, pro-Taliban militants in the NWFP and FATA contacted the Pakistan Army proposing a ceasefire, ostensibly to meet and deal with the larger, external threat posed by the Indian armed forces, going so far as to offer suicide bombers for joint operations against the Indians.

The terrorist attacks on Mumbai last week may, then, finally achieve their true objective.  Besieged on all sides in a growingly hostile world environment, Islamabad may choose to scale down its operations against pro-Taliban militant factions in NWFP and FATA, effectively surrendering on-the-ground control to the Taliban and allied anti-American forces, in order to focus its energy and forces on the Indo-Pak border.  If that were to pass, the Pak-Afghan border, including the narrow and limited routes through which 80% of NATO supplies pass through onwards to Afghanistan, such as the famous Khyber Pass, would fall to the Taliban, choking off NATO forces in Afghanistan in the middle of winter.

The Mumbai terrorist attacks may end up doing more damage to the U.S. war on Afghanistan than any other single event since the 2001 invasion.

SUMMARY OF EVENTS: December 1 – 8, 2008

NORTH AMERICA

Canada

The leaders of Canada’s three opposition parties said on Monday they have written to the Governor General, Canada’s head of state, asking her to call on Liberal leader Stephane Dion to form a new government.

Canada’s minority Conservative government may seek the temporary suspension of Parliament to stop opposition parties from voting it out and taking power, an aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper said on Tuesday.

Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper won a rare suspension of Parliament on Thursday, managing to avoid being ousted by opposition parties angry over the minority Conservative government’s economic plans and an attempt to cut off party financing.

United States

A judge in Raymondville, Texas has dropped indictments against Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

Wall Street stocks plunged Monday, giving back most of its gains from the past week, amid bleak economic news from around the globe including confirmation of a recession in the United States.

With no more than two months left in his term, U.S. President George W. Bush, for the first time, admitted in public that “intelligence failure” on Iraq was his “biggest regret” during the eight-year administration, according to a TV interview to be broadcast on Monday.

The US secretary of state has called on Pakistan to give its “total” co-operation in finding those responsible for last week’s deadly attacks on Mumbai as India demanded Pakistan hand over 20 suspects.

The United States can expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or more likely biological weapons before 2013, reports a bipartisan commission in a study being briefed Tuesday to Vice President-elect Joe Biden. It suggests the Obama administration bolster efforts to counter and prepare for germ warfare by terrorists.

The United States said on Friday that President Robert Mugabe’s departure from office was long overdue and a food crisis and cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe meant it was now vital for the international community to act.

Struggling to find enough doctors, nurses and linguists for the war effort, the Pentagon will temporarily recruit foreigners who have been living in the United States on student and work visas, or with refugee or political asylum status.

Five Blackwater Worldwide security guards have been indicted and a sixth was negotiating a plea with prosecutors for a 2007 shooting that left 17 Iraqis dead and became an anti-American rallying cry for insurgents, people close to the case said Friday.

WESTERN EUROPE

NATO foreign ministers agreed on Tuesday to gradually resume contacts with Moscow, suspended after Russia’s armed conflict with Georgia in August, the NATO secretary general said.

Britain

State officials are to be given powers previously reserved for times of war to demand a person’s proof of identity at any time.

Iceland

Iceland’s prime minister said Saturday he has no intention of stepping down over his country’s economic meltdown even as thousands of angry citizens demanded his resignation during a noisy protest outside parliament.

Italy

A Milan judge on Wednesday suspended the high-profile trial of U.S. and Italian agents suspected of a CIA kidnapping after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi authorized witnesses to invoke state secrecy.

Italian president and media baron Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday that he would use his country’s imminent presidency of the G8 group to push for an international agreement to “regulate the internet”.

EASTERN EUROPE

Russia

Russia is ready to resume dialogue with NATO, but only if mutual interests are taken into account, the foreign minister said Friday.

MIDDLE EAST

Israel

The Israel Defense Force is drawing up options for a strike on Iranian nuclear facilities that do not include coordination with the United States, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

SOUTH ASIA

India

India on Monday formally accused “elements” in Pakistan of being behind the devastating Islamic militant attacks in Mumbai and demanded that Islamabad take “strong action”.

India and Russia signed a civilian nuclear deal Friday that would see Russia build four nuclear reactors for power-starved India.

Pakistan

Pakistan refuses to turn over suspected terrorists to India, but could try them in its own courts, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said.

Thailand

Anti-government protesters prepared to end their blockade of Bangkok’s airports on Wednesday after Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, a target of their campaign, was forced to step down by the courts.

AFRICA

Zimbabwe

The Zimbabwean government has accused its opponents of inciting soldiers to revolt in what critics say is confirmation of suspicions the week-long protests by the usually loyal security forces were a well calculated ruse to allow President Robert Mugabe to declare a state of emergency.

South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu said on Thursday that Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe must step down or be removed by force.

Manjit Singh is a contributor to Geopoliticalmonitor.com