Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Pakistan stirs a tribal war

Put on your happy pants, we may have started another civil war. -Am


By Syed Saleem Shahzad
March 3, 2004

KARACHI - The weekend's incident of "mistaken fire" in which Pakistani soldiers killed at least 11 people in a shooting incident in Wana in the tribal region of South Waziristan near the Afghan border has virtually overnight changed the rules of the game in the region.

The Pakistani army says that its soldiers were firing back at militants who had attacked an army camp, but tribesmen say that the troops opened fire on two vehicles that failed to stop at a road block; local people and Afghans were among the dead.

The Pakistani army last week launched a fresh offensive against al-Qaeda, Taliban and key Afghan resistance suspects in the tribal areas, a highly sensitive move at the best of times in the semi-autonomous region where the writ of Islamabad does not apply.

The Pakistani operation is being conducted in conjunction with United States-led troops across the border in Afghanistan, whom, it is believed, will round up any fleeing fugitives from Pakistan. Last week, Pakistani officials said that they had arrested about 20 people, but no details were given.

The operations in the tribal region were considered a precursor to bigger ones in Afghanistan in April and onwards when the weather improves, but now the tribal regions themselves could become a part of the problem.

Although President General Pervez Musharraf was quick to set up a commission of inquiry and announce compensation packages (US$1,700 for the families of the 11 dead, half that amount for those injured) tribals are now likely to take on the Pakistan military. Some rocket attacks on Pakistani military targets have already been reported over the past few days.

Tribal law
The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province are located on the Pakistan side of the 2,400 kilometer long and porous border with Afghanistan.

The tribal areas had a population of 5.7 million according to a 1998 national census. There are seven tribal areas: Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North Waziristan and South Waziristan, all dominated by Pashtun tribes.

The tribal areas, or agencies as they are often called, were created by the British to serve as a buffer between undivided India and Afghanistan. The British devised a special system of political administration to govern the Pashtun tribes who resisted colonial rule with fierce determination.

The tribal people were granted maximum autonomy and allowed to run their affairs in accordance with their Islamic faith, customs and traditions. Tribal elders, known as maliks, were given special favors by the British in return for services such as maintaining peace and apprehending anti-state and anti-social elements. Basically, this system still exists today, and the Pakistani courts and police have no jurisdiction in tribal areas.

Broadly, people in the tribal areas can be categorized as being pro-Pakistan, or not. The former, or religious element, can be found mostly in South Waziristan and North Waziristan, and they also support or are sympathetic to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. A sizeable, though not a majority, of the population opposes the Taliban and al-Qaeda. They could be termed as Pashtun nationalists and they are generally against the Pakistan establishment and army.

Before the latest operations began in the tribal areas, Pakistani authorities mainly contacted the religious element and convinced them (falsely) that Pakistani military intervention was unavoidable, or the US would bomb Pakistani territory. The authorities assured the leaders that the Pakistan army would only flush out foreign fighters from Pakistan into Afghanistan, and would not let US forces into Pakistan territory. On this argument, the tribals agreed not to be hostile towards the army.

Meanwhile, the US cultivated the nationalistic Pashtun element. With tangible "inducements", the tribals provided the US with intelligence on the presence of foreign fighters, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistani territory. Yet as soon as Pakistani troops began their operations, US agents used this as an example of Pakistan intervening in the tribal areas.

With the weekend's killing of 11 tribals, sentiment among even the pro-establishment tribals has changed, and they find themselves on the same "side" as the nationalists, and political and religious affiliations have been blurred. (This was fueled in part by unconfirmed reports that US soldiers had been involved in the shooting and were being given a free run in the tribal areas.)

Now tribals threaten that if there is another major mobilization of Pakistan troops in the area, "Pakistani forces will only take their own body bags back home".

Across the border
With much of the world's media focussed on the highly-publicized hunt for Osama bin Laden in the mountains that divide Pakistan and Afghanistan, another, more secret operation was undertaken on Afghan soil in the Kunar Valley, with the target former premier, mujahideen veteran and resistance leader Gulbuddin Hekmatayr.

However, a week-long operation proved fruitless, and the coalition forces and their Afghan counterparts remain as clueless as ever on the whereabouts of Gulbuddin and a close band of loyalists said to accompany him wherever he goes.

The coalition is also more than keen to rope in other resistance leaders, such as Kashmir Khan, Jalaluddin Haqqani and Saifullah Mansoor, as the capture of any one of these would be a major setback for the resistance and a possible lead to Taliban leader Mullah Omar. Until then, the resistance continues to consolidate, and grow.

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