Chasing Taliban into Balochistan

Whether or not the CIA-operated drones would target Taliban insurgents’ hideouts in and around Quetta city, the United States has got its message across that there is no area out of its reach within Pakistani controlled territories.

This is not a new development. Early this year, the U.S Central Command warned Pakistani generals about the presence of Taliban’s war council in Pashtoon areas of Balochistan but Pakistan’s military and its civilian puppets brushed aside such warnings, instead, demanded solid intelligence from the U.S to back up such claims. Nevertheless, no military is fool enough – let alone the U.S army – to compromise its sources on the ground by sharing intelligence to Pakistan. And Pakistani generals too well understood this fact.

In any case, Pakistan is not willing to sacrifice its strategic lambs to the U.S, despite the fact that the Americans keep filling its begging bowl with dollars. The likely scenario would be that Pakistani intelligence services continue their support to Afghan Taliban, in the meantime, hedging their bets that sooner or later, the morale of western forces would drawdown because of protracted nature of this conflict, thereby, once again, opening the gates for their proxies.

From Baloch perspective, the more the U.S. intervenes militarily in Pakistani controlled territories particularly in Balochistan, the further Islamabad’s writ will be undermined, consequently, the better it serves the Baloch interests.