THE PASHTUN QUESTION ABUBAKAR SIDDIQUE The Pashtun Question The Unresolved Key to the Future of Pakistan and Afghanistan First published in the United Kingdom in 2014 by C. Hurst & Co. (Publishers) Ltd., 41 Great Russell Street, London, WC1B 3PL © Abubakar Siddique, 2014 All rights reserved. Printed in India Distributed in the United States, Canada and Latin America by Oxford University Press, 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America The right of Abubakar Siddique to be identified as the author of this publication is asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988. A Cataloguing-in-Publication data record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: 978-1849042925 www.hurstpublishers.com This book is printed using paper from registered sustainable and managed sources. This book is dedicated to my parents, a source of wisdom and righteousness in my life. CONTENTS List of Illustrations Glossary Acknowledgements Maps Introduction PART ONE THEATRE OF CONQUEST 1. Twenty-first Century Pashtuns: Continuity Amid Catastrophe Who are the Pashtuns? The Great Tribal Maze An Evolving Social Tapestry A Shattered Homeland From Kandahar to Swat 2. From Peaceful Borderlands to Incubators of Extremism The Enlightened Teacher The Rigid Mullah The Warrior Poet Afghan Empire Frontier Jihads The Great Game The Cold War and Pashtunistan The Globalisation of Jihad Arab Revolutionaries 3. The Taliban in Power Student Militias Ascendant Ruling by Decree Pashtun Nationalists? Pakistani Proxies? Bridge to Extremism PART TWO PAKISTAN 4. War in Waziristan Rise of the Pakistani Taliban Ideology and Paths of Action The Haqqanis A New Abode for Al-Qaeda Islamabad’s Stepchildren 5. Vanishing Tribes Every Valley Burns Hatred Under White Mountain Collective Punishment Too Little, Too Late 6. Terror in Pakhtunkhwa Revolutionary Politics From Paradise to Hell The Military’s Pashtun Wars 7. Simmering Balochistan: a Taliban Haven Taliban Redux Divided Deobandis Balochistan: Crossroads of Conflict PART THREE AFGHANISTAN 8. Old and New Islamists in Loy Nangarhar Archetype Mullah Salafism in Kunar 9. Tribes, Communists and Generational Jihadists in Loya Paktia Marx Among the Tribes Jihad in Blood Changing Tribal Landscape 10. The New Taliban in Loy Kandahar A Dying Nation The Book of Rules A Shadowy Organisation Taliban Utopia Making Peace with the Taliban The Nationalist Card PART FOUR CONCLUSION 11. Crafting a Peaceful Pashtun Future Uncle Sam in Pashtunistan A Democratic Pakistan The Future of Afghanistan A Permanent Peace Notes Index LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS (Between pages 110 and 111) 1. A village in Lower Dir, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, © Majeed Babar 2. Some Loya Paktia delegates in the Loya Jirga, Kabul, January 2004, © Author 3. Noor Habibullah, a former detainee of the Guantanamo Bay prison in Jalalabad, summer 2004, © Author 4. Former Taliban diplomat Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, Kabul 2010, © Author 5. Afrasiab Khattak, October 2010, © Author 6. Folk musicians in Swat, © Shaheen Buneri 7. Maulana Noor Muhammad, a pro-Taliban JUI leader in Balochistan, © Abdul Hai Kakar 8. A distraught Pashtun mother showing the picture of her disappeared son, Jalalabad, 2004, © Author 9. A British-era security hilltop security post on a hilltop in Landikotal, Khyber Pass, © Majeed Babar 10. Malam Jabba in Swat, © Majeed Babar 11. The ruined Darul Aman Palace in Kabul, 2003, © Author 12. Afghan National Army recruits being trained, Kabul, 2004, © Author 13. Rusting tanks leftover from the Soviet Occupation in 1980s, Kabul, 2004, © Author 14. The road to Gardez, capital of Paktia Province, © Author 15. Remains of the ancient Bala Hissar fort in Kabul, © Author 16. The mausoleum of Afghan Emperor Ahmad Shah Durrani in Kandahar, © Author 17. The Shaheedano Chowk (Martyrs Square) in Kandahar, © Author 18. A paramilitary check post in Swat. © Shaheen Buneri 19. A Pashtun nomad women near Kandahar, February 2002, © Author