We in Pakistan constantly hear that our country is a hopeless mess, an ungovernable shamble of a state whose military and intelligence services are more or less on the side of global terrorists and local insurgents. But few observers seem to have noticed that, over the last five months or so, Pakistan has made an astonishing turnaround. In fact, it's time for cautious optimism about my country's fate.
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For one thing, the militants are reeling from a series of significant blows. The dramatic capture of Muslim Khan and four other Taliban militants in a Sept. 3 military-intelligence sting operation is just the latest deadly strike against the embattled Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). It represents the third major setback for the dreaded outfit since Aug. 5, when a CIA-operated drone missile took out Baitullah Mehsud, TTP's founder and chief.
Only a few days after Mehsud's death, TTP spokesman Maulvi Muhammad Omar was captured in the Mohmand tribal region. The fate of Hakimullah Mehsud, whom the organization's shura purportedly picked as the new chief on Aug. 25, is still uncertain, with virtually no sign of him since the day he was made the ameer. Similarly, another fierce al Qaeda-aligned TTP leader, Maulvi Fazlullah, is handicapped by serious wounds and reportedly under siege -- probably counting his days as a free icon of terror. And Shah Dauran, an infamous associate of Fazlullah who used to spread terror through mobile FM radio airwaves, is now dead.
Khan, as TTP spokesman in the Swat Valley, had owned up to scores of suicide bombings against security forces and admitted attacks on dozens of girls' schools in the Swat region. Khan also claimed responsibility on behalf of the TTP for sending two suicide bombers to a weapons-manufacturing complex -- the Pakistan Ordnance Factories near Islamabad -- where about 90 people were blown into pieces in April 2008 in one of the deadliest attacks in Pakistan's recent history.
The sting operation became possible only after Kamal Khan, an old acquaintance of Muslim Khan now living in the United States, agreed to become part of the game. The strategy to capture the TTP spokesman aimed to create a facade of negotiations and trap the militants, who had been publicly vowing attacks on Pakistani government institutions.
Kamal Khan and Pakistan's Military Intelligence, a division of the Pakistani Army, moved in tandem and eventually a raid involving some six dozen commandos resulted in Muslim Khan's capture at a village called Mangalore, some 7 miles southwest of Mingora, the administrative capital of the Swat district.
"It was purely an intelligence-driven operation," a senior Army official overseeing the operation told me. "It was not a smooth affair. Six of their guards got killed in the firefight that erupted when the commandos moved in."
As a whole, the events since Aug. 5, when a U.S. drone strike put Baitullah Mehsud to sleep forever, underline a pattern that should evoke optimism and confidence both inside and outside Pakistan. It also erases fears of a potentially drawn-out conflict in the tribal areas. Let us consider why.
First, the Army and civilians alike were shocked and alarmed in early April when the TTP militants, taking cover under a controversial peace deal, began occupying strategic locations in Buner, Mingora, Malam Jabba, and parts of Malakand. Their worries multiplied when Taliban militants abducted four Pakistani Army commandos in the mountainous Buner Valley and eventually executed them.
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