Pakistani Taliban: Down But Not Out

Waves of militants stormed an air force base in Peshawar, Pakistan, early Friday morning. The gunmen, dressed in police uniforms, targeted Pakistani forces as well as worshipers in an on-base mosque. At least 29 people were killed; the death toll has risen as the hours pass.

Badaber air base may be unfamiliar to most Americans today, but it played a key role in Cold War history. It was from this base in 1960 that the U-2 spy plane of CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was launched on its ill-fated surveillance mission over Soviet airspace.

Fifty-five years later, Badaber has come under assault from the Pakistani Taliban, whose once-ferocious insurgency has been greatly diminished. Several years of U.S. drone strikes and Pakistani military offensives have drastically reduced the Pakistani Taliban’s capacities. An army counterterrorism offensive launched in June 2014 in North Waziristan has significantly reduced terror attacks in Pakistan. Leadership crises and internal infighting also have weakened the terror group.

Taliban attacks have become more isolated in recent months and may represent a besieged group’s efforts to demonstrate continued relevance. But the coordination and damage inflicted–not just Friday but also in the killings at an army-run school in Peshawar last December–show that the organization, though weakened, is still lethal.

After the Pakistani army’s offensive in North Waziristan began to devastate the Taliban, many of its fighters managed to gravitate to other tribal areas and to Afghanistan, where some of the group’s leadership has long been based. In recent years some members have quietly migrated to major Pakistani cities, including the financial capital of Karachi.

In short, the Pakistani Taliban is down but not out. It enjoys close ties to powerful al Qaeda-linked militant groups in the region, and it retains the ability to recruit fighters to join those based in the Pakistani tribal belt, elsewhere in Pakistan, and in Afghanistan.

Left unchecked, a regrouped Taliban could, over time, again pose a deep threat to Pakistan–one that could go well beyond isolated attacks such as what took place Friday at Badaber.

The opinions expressed here are those solely of the author.

This article was originally published in the Wall Street Journal.