What if the taleban lose in Afghanistan and take over Karachi?
Taliban Thrive in Pakistani Commercial Hub - WSJ.com
**KARACHI, Pakistan—Large neighborhoods in Pakistan’s biggest metropolis have fallen under the control of the Taliban over the past year, according to residents and officials here, a development that could disrupt the country’s economy and endanger the U.S. military pullout from Afghanistan.
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**The Pakistani Taliban, a movement that was spawned by the Afghan Taliban but now operates separately, are now the dominant force in entire districts of this sprawling city of 20 million people, residents said. The group has established tribal courts, operates extortion rackets and stages terrorist attacks in the city, the economic heart of Pakistan and its only major port.
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If the Taliban reign spreads, coalition convoys withdrawing supplies through Karachi will have to contend with the militants, said Haider Abbas Rizvi, deputy parliamentary leader from Karachi’s dominant political party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, or MQM. “This is a crucial moment for Karachi. The Taliban has the potential to grab any area of Karachi whenever they feel like.”
The Taliban movement, allied with Al-Qaeda and based in the Waziristan tribal area along the Afghan border, seeks to “capture not only Karachi but the whole country,” Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said. “Karachi is a big stronghold for us. People come to us voluntarily to get their problems solved.”
Chaudhry Aslam, a senior counterterrorism police officer in Karachi, blamed the Taliban for attacks including a March 3 bombing at an apartment block targeting the minority Shiite population that killed at least 48 people and injured 180. Mr. Aslam, however, said the group didn’t control any part of the city. “There aren’t any no-go areas for the police. While we still have one drop of blood left, we won’t let these Taliban tarnish our religion or destabilize our country,” he said.
But the Taliban are so confident of their standing that they have put up posters in some districts with phone numbers to call for residents who need their help, especially to complain about criminal activity. Karachi has been racked for decades by political violence and organized crime, with many of the main political parties here operating their own extortion gangs. The Taliban are relatively more appealing, at least to fellow members of the Pashtun ethnic group.
“We know the culture of the Taliban and can reason with them, to some extent,” said a Pashtun truck driver who moves concrete bricks around Korangi, a neighborhood dominated by the MQM, which represents the Mohajir community of Muslim refugees hailing from India.
**The Taliban also play a role in resolving business disputes for profit. “If the Taliban phone me, I’ll go within two minutes, or I’ll soon be dead,” said a businessman in a Taliban-controlled neighborhood. While Waziristan Taliban are known for long hair and beards, in Karachi they could be clean-shaven and even wear Western clothing, he said.
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Decades of migration from the Pashtun heartland on the two sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border have turned Karachi into the largest Pashtun population center in the world, with some 5 million citizens of Pashtun origin. It is the city’s Pashtun areas that have come under Taliban influence.
The secular Awami National Party, which used to dominate Karachi’s Pashtun neighborhoods, has been forced out of these areas over the past year. In recent months, around 35 ANP workers were killed and the party abandoned some 30 offices in Karachi, said Shahi Syed, the ANP’s provincial chief and a member of the Pakistani Senate. “The Taliban have come to Karachi. The old criminals here have also joined them. They are running a whole system here,” he said. “Tomorrow the whole city will be paying them.”
With national elections due on May 11, the ANP—part of the departing central government coalition—faces potential extinction in Karachi. Its flags have been torn down in its constituencies. “If we can’t even hold a rally, how can you call this a free and fair election?” Mr. Syed said.
Security forces launch regular operations against Taliban strongholds in the city. A crackdown on Thursday in a Pashtun area known as Frontier Colony, in the west of the city, brought over 100 arrests, according to news reports. The chief of the Pakistani Taliban in Karachi, Khan Zaman Mehsud, recently fled to Waziristan, Mr. Aslam, the counterterrorism police officer, said.
But in many Pashtun areas, where locals say regular patrols by police are rare, residents said they take their problems to the Taliban to solve. The Pashtuns tend to live in poor, rundown neighborhoods on the fringes of Karachi, especially in its northern reaches, where roads lead out of the city. There, Taliban have recruited thugs and taken on foot soldiers from the many illiterate young men who would find it hard to get jobs, residents said.
The Taliban use young boys as their spies, and to deliver extortion demands, which often come as a written notes, residents said.
In one incident in early January, a milk seller was robbed at his house in Pakhtunabad, a ramshackle settlement in the city’s northern outskirts. Four robbers took away a pistol and 3,000 rupees ($30), equivalent to perhaps two weeks’ earnings, three witnesses said.
The victim, who recognized the men, reported the crime to police, and then called the Taliban on one of the phone numbers written on fliers and posters that had been distributed in the neighborhood a few days earlier.
**That same day, two masked men appeared at the milk seller’s house on a motorbike and questioned him, the witnesses said. The next night, he was visited by the district Taliban chief, Ismail Mehsud, who then phoned the thieves. They appeared within minutes of his summons, outside the milk seller’s tiny house. The Taliban chief beat them in the street and instructed them to return the money and pistol, according to the witnesses. The following day, the stolen property was returned.
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“The Taliban steal from us,” one of the milkman’s neighbors said, “and then they also get our money back.”
