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Taliban rule openly in Waziristan
Four years after the United States led the overthrow of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, a new Taliban movement has taken control in a swath of neighboring Pakistan.Taliban militants control much of Waziristan, a rocky, mountainous area twice the size of Long Island along the Pakistani border. Despite a heavy presence of Pakistani troops, Waziristan has become the largest and most protected sanctuary for Islamic militant guerrillas in the Afghan-Pakistani theater of the "global war on terror." U.S. military officers and Afghan officials in three neighboring provinces of Afghanistan say the infiltration of guerrillas from Waziristan has continued unabated and is the primary engine of the continued Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. Waziristan "is very important to the Taliban" as a base of operations in the Afghan-Pakistani theater, said Mike Scheuer, a former top analyst at the CIA. And it is likely to stay that way for years, analysts say. "The strength of the militants in Waziristan has built up over a generation," said Behroz Khan, the regional bureau chief for a Pakistani daily, The News. At best, "it will take a generation to pacify and integrate this region" into the Pakistani state, he said. While Waziristan's militants use the label "Taliban" and include figures from the former Afghan regime, their exact relationship with the Afghan movement is unclear. Some have voiced fealty to the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Omar, but observers such as ex-CIA officer Milt Bearden say it is unclear whether he directs them. Beginning in late 2003, Pakistan sent an estimated 70,000 troops into its Afghan borderlands, especially Waziristan, in a campaign against Islamic militant fighters. The result, by all accounts except that of Pakistan's government, has been disastrous. The government bars foreign journalists, aid organizations and other observers from Waziristan, but local journalists and refugees tell of counter-insurgency errors much like those of the Americans in Vietnam and the Soviets in Afghanistan. Under British-era laws that hold an entire village or clan culpable for any crime committed in their lands, the army has retaliated broadly for militant attacks. It has killed hundreds of civilians, destroyed villages, livestock and orchards and alienated Waziristan's people, residents and scholars from the region have said. Army officers repeatedly have described the campaign as a success that just needs more time. A year ago, the operation's chief commander, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussein, declared "the back of the terrorists has been broken." In September, the army's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, told journalists "most of ... Waziristan ... has been secured." Sultan was traveling abroad last week and unavailable for comment, his office said. "The Taliban are the de facto rulers" in the South Waziristan tribal agency, or district, and army troops there are mainly restricted to their bases, said Khan. The Taliban controls the roads, acts as the police force and judicial authority and openly runs offices to recruit fighters to their ranks, said Khan and recent visitors to the area. Pakistan last year signed a truce with the Taliban leader in South Waziristan, Baitullah Mahsud, and the fighting in recent months has shifted to the north. In Mir Ali, a North Waziristan district densely dotted with farming villages, "people have been fleeing from their homes because the Taliban and foreigners have moved into the area," said Ahmed Ali, a veterinary specialist from Mir Ali who works in the nearest big city, Peshawar. The army has been attacking local villages in a brutal campaign to root out the militants, said Ali and refugees from Mir Ali interviewed last month. In Pakistan, support for the Taliban and al-Qaida is strongest - and the government's rule is weakest - in the seven autonomous tribal agencies dominated by ethnic Pashtuns that stretch along the Afghan border. North Waziristan and South Waziristan are the poorest agencies, and the most isolated and least integrated into Pakistan, say Khan and other analysts. The tribal agencies were created in the 19th century as a buffer zone at the edge of British-ruled India. The British let the Waziris and other fiercely independent Pashtun tribes run their own affairs, and discouraged them from attacking British interests by paying off tribal leaders and conducting punitive military strikes against the uncooperative. Since Pakistan was formed from British India in 1947, it has maintained the colonial system, ruling through appointed "political agents" who are seen widely as corrupt. Residents were given the right to vote only in 1997, and political parties still are not allowed to function in the agencies. Islamic militant parties "can work there through the mosques, under the guise of religion," said Khan, and so have a monopoly on political discourse. The original Taliban movement was born in Waziristan and other areas of Pakistan's Pashtun belt in the 1990s, and took power in Afghanistan with support from Pakistan's military. After Sept. 11, when the United States went to war against the Taliban for hosting Osama bin Laden, Pakistan's leadership was forced to go along, but the conditions that gave rise to the militant movement remain unchanged in Waziristan. In a tribal culture suffused with blood feuds, men build their families' strength by having as many sons as possible. In a territory with few roads or schools and virtually no industry, vast numbers of young men are unemployed. "In my village, at least half of the families are involved in blood feuds" over land, women or honor, said Ahmed Ali, the veterinarian. His family has been fighting another in his village for 35 years, he said. Of his 90 closest male relatives (Pashtun women are confined to the home), about half are unemployed, he said. Men in the family can take jobs only with the government, which offers a degree of protection from assassination by their rivals. "If they took an ordinary job, working in the bazaar, they could soon be killed," he said. Only a few relatives who left Waziristan for schooling are managing to build careers, in cities in Pakistan or the Persian Gulf, Ali said. "The rest are killing their time, hanging out and drinking tea," he said. When Islamic militants come to town, preaching in the mosques about jihad and glory, "boys with no education and no plan for their life are happy to join," he said. In the past year, the army has tried at times to soften its approach by building roads and schools. "The army's slogan is 'We bring you development,'" Khan said. "But they are not winning the trust of the tribesmen." Population: About 3.1 million, mostly ethnic Pashtuns sympathetic to the Taliban. History: Created by Britain, when it was ruling the subcontinent, as a buffer between India and Afghanistan. Government: Little federal authority, area ruled mostly by tribal elders. Travel: Area is almost exclusively off-limits to outsiders; Pakistani government restricts access by Westerners. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-02-12 |
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