KABUL — The brutality of Taliban attacks in northwest Pakistan has cost the militants public support, the U.S. special envoy to the region said Saturday.
Richard Holbrooke, making his sixth trip to Afghanistan in the past year, said the ruthlessness of militants like Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, is beginning to “backfire” on the extremist network’s operation in the Swat valley.
Holbrooke, who visited the Swat valley a few days ago, cited Swat’s notorious Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah whose radio broadcasts long spread fear among residents of the valley and Mehsud, the apparent target of a U.S. airstrike Thursday.
“I feel that the extremists … have overshot their mark,” Holbrooke said. “I think that brutality with which they approach Swat has now backfired.”
The death of Mehsud would be a victory for the United States and Pakistan in their fight against Islamist militants. Mehsud was seen on a recent video sitting next to the Jordanian militant who killed seven CIA employees in a suicide attack in December in Afghanistan. Mehsud’s Tehrik-e-Taliban movement, which is linked to al-Qaida and the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan, has also claimed responsibility for scores of bloody suicide bombings in Pakistan in recent months against military, civilian and government targets.
It’s not certain that Mehsud lived through the U.S. airstrike, but Pakistani intelligence officials and militants said Mehsud was not among the dead.
A militant advance in April into the Swat Valley, which is outside the tribal areas where militants have traditionally been strong, appeared to push the country into taking firm action against the insurgency. Holbrooke said the Pakistani military cleared the Swat valley with less difficulty than expected.
On Friday in Kabul, Holbrooke took part in an hour-long teleconference with President Barack Obama. Holbrooke and U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Karl Eikenberry had a four-hour meeting Saturday with Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan.
Among the topics discussed: an international conference on Afghanistan Jan. 28 in London, development of the Afghan security forces, work to bolster agriculture and a multimillion-dollar initiative the Afghan government is crafting to use economic incentives to persuade low- and midlevel Taliban fighters to stop fighting.
Holbrooke said the U.S. was anxious to support the reintegration program, which would reach out to 20,000 to 35,000 low- to midlevel Taliban insurgents, in hopes that it would succeed where past programs have failed. “It was a major topic that the ambassador and I spoke with President Karzai spoke about today,” Holbrooke said.
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