Debating Room

Reporters in Pakistan's violence-wrecked northwestern tribal areas and Swat Valley say intimidation from militant groups and authorities pose serious threats for their security.

Journalists say that belligerents in Pakistan's decade-old insurgency are using assassinations, violence, threats and intimidation to affect their coverage of the conflict that has left more than 50,000 civilians, soldiers and militants dead since 2004.

Talking in Radio Mashaal's weekly live call-in show, "Along the Borderland," Safdar Dawar, former president of the Tribal Union of Journalists (TUJ), said that since 2005 13 of his colleagues have been killed, five seriously wounded and more than 100 journalists and their families forced out of their homes in different parts of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

"After Islamabad launched a military offensive in North Waziristan Agency [tribal district last June] against pro Al-Qaeda Taliban groups, six tribal journalists were abducted by the authorities or militant groups," he said.

Dawar said Pakistani media organizations offer little support for journalists working in the tribal areas and often abandon them after they are threatened by the militants or security forces.

Rasool Dawar, a journalist from North Waziristan, was detained by the state security agencies twice but was never given any reasons for his detention.

He told Radio Mashaal he was first arrested by security forces on February 20 and was released after being kept blind-folded for hours. He said that incident happened in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, where he reports for a leading Pakistani news channel, Geo.

Again on April 14, he was detained by Peshawar police along with a colleague. The police had no arrest warrant for him and had no formal charges against him.

"I repeatedly asked them what I had done wrong, but they just said my arrest was due to some misunderstanding. Maybe the first time was a misunderstanding, but why did they arrest me a second time?" he said.

Rasool Dawar is now considering leaving journalism and taking up farming in his village in North Waziristan.

His problems, however, began in his hometown. Last summer, threats in North Waziristan prompted him to move to Peshawar along with his family. Now even Peshawar is not safe for him. Since his last detention, Rasool Dawar is living in the capital, Islamabad, while his wife and five children remain in Peshawar.

Fazal Khaliq, a reporter for the English-language daily "The Express Tribune" in Swat Valley, says reporters often do not know the imperceptible line they are expected not to cross when covering the conflict in northwestern Pakistan.

"During the military operation in 2009, four local journalists were killed in Swat Valley, but security forces have yet to investigate the motives and people behind their murder," he said. "Recently, some of the local journalists have received letters and phone calls from different militant groups demanding money and favors."

Khaliq says that while Islamabad claims to be fighting terrorists, it needs more to address the worsening environment for journalists. "I wonder, despite all the advancements in technology, why the police and security agencies are unable to trace the people responsible for threatening journalists?" he said.

"Along the Borderland" is a weekly, hour-long Radio Mashaal call-in show known for interactive debates on social and political issues. Every Tuesday, millions of listeners in the Pakistani borderlands of FATA, Baluchistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces tune in to the show.

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Anyone who is listening to Russian officials, or getting their information from Russian media lately would think that the Central Asian states are on the brink of disaster, that Islamic militants massing in Afghanistan are preparing to swarm over the border and establish a caliphate in the southern tier of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Some view such warnings with skepticism, believing Russia, faced with new competition in Central Asia from China and the West, is resorting to its ultimate policy tool for influence in Central Asia – security – and is hyping the potential militant threat to bring the Central Asian states solidly back into Moscow's orbit.

RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, assembled a panel discussion to look at how real the threat is to Turkmenistan, Moscow's possible motives for the repeated dire warnings to Ashgabat and the other Central Asian governments, and what is being reported about help from the world powers for Turkmenistan.

Azatlyk director Muhammad Tahir moderated the discussion with panelists Nikita Mendkovitch, expert on Afghanistan at the Russian International Affairs Council, Artem Ulunian, Central Asian analyst and head research associate in the Institute of History at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Colonel Cheryl Garner, retired, formerly the team leader of Central and South Asian analysis for NATO, former aide of the U.S. General in charge of the Afghanistan war in Kabul and upcoming officer at the State Department's Afghanistan desk. I also took part.

Russian officials were warning several years ago about the possible consequences of the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan for Central Asia. Following the successes of the Islamic State (IS) militant group last year in the Middle East, those warnings from Russia have come more frequently and with a greater sense of urgency.

So how significant is the threat?

Mendkovitch started by mentioning that the Taliban, or Taliban-affiliated groups, are present along the Afghan-Turkmen border. "Some groups have attacked positions of Turkmenistan, they attack the police forces of Afghanistan in the border area and in some places the Afghan government really doesn't control the situation," Medkovitch said.

It was noted that, in the latter half of the 1990s, under previous Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov Turkmenistan's relations with the Taliban were good. But Mendkovitch explained that current Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov does not enjoy the same relationship with the Taliban, mainly because of Turkmenistan's more vigorous antinarcotics campaign that has made it more difficult for the Taliban to traffic through Turkmenistan.

Renegade Bands

Ulunian pointed out that it was unclear if the Taliban leadership controls some of those groups in northern Afghanistan who are referred to as Taliban. Ulunian said there were "uncontrolled bands" there and they were more likely than the Taliban to resort to actions against Turkmen border guards, for example.

Garner followed that point, bringing up the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). The group has recently strengthened its presence in northern Afghanistan due to the infusion of IMU fighters who fled the Pakistani military's offensive on IMU hideouts in North Waziristan.

Garner said the threat to Central Asia was greater from the IMU than from the Taliban and she added "there's more of a threat from the IMU…possibly aligning themselves with Daesh (IS)."

There are already scattered and vague reports of a few groups in Afghanistan calling themselves IMU and swearing allegiance to the IS.

In any case, there are militant groups in northern Afghanistan; their numbers are unclear but certainly many hundreds, and while none of these groups have the ability to overrun Central Asia they do have the potential to cause instability.

So is Russia correct in saying that the Central Asians need Moscow's help to prevent such instability and is the militant threat the Kremlin's sole concern?

Ulunian said that, while it is difficult to "define the real purposes of the [Russian] authorities" he thought "the idea is to push forward its [Russia's] influence in the region where independent states were established many years ago and now the situation in those states is not good…and some characteristics, features of a crisis can be observed."

Medkovitch added that Moscow's concern was justified, pointing out that while Turkmenistan does not have a border with Russia, it does with Kazakhstan -- and Kazakhstan has a long border with Russia. Mendkovitch said, "Iraq is far away from the United States but the United States is interested in the situation in this country. They think that the current situation in Iraq is a threat for Europe, for the United States for all the modern world. So, Russia is much closer to Turkmenistan…"

The Big Question

Then the big question came up: is it possible Russia already has troops in Turkmenistan, as some reports speculated?

Mendkovitch said that, given the current state of Turkmen-Russian relations, it was impossible. Ulunian agreed there was no possibility presently of deploying Russian troops to Turkmenistan though he said it could be possible that special units were brought in briefly for training with Turkmen forces in case such Russian forces needed to return "in an emergency."

The problem with the reports of Russian troops (Uzbek troops were mentioned also) being seen in Turkmenistan is that the Turkmen government is so opaque and Turkmenistan so closed off to foreigners, that no one can be sure what is happening.

It was pointed out, for example, that the Turkmen government did cooperate with the U.S. efforts in Afghanistan, though the extent of that cooperation was intentionally never made clear.

Garner explained, for example, that Turkmenistan was part of NATO's Northern Distribution Network (NDN) to bring supplies from Europe to Afghanistan. "I can tell that, out of all of the Central Asian countries, Turkmenistan was the most sensitive about being perceived as participating in the NDN," he said.

Which is why, Garner said, it was so surprising when the head of the U.S. Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, admitted publicly at the start of this month that Turkmenistan has requested military aid from the United States. Austin did not elaborate on that request but, in the days since he made the comments, the Turkmen government has remained silent about the matter.

The conversation dealt more deeply with these topics and more. An audio recording of the panel discussion can be heard here:

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Panel Discussion: Russian Intentions In Turkmenistan

by RFE/RL

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