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Operation ongoing in South Waziristan
Not satisfied with the performance of tribal leaders in nabbing and handing over people harbouring and helping Al Qaeda remnants, the administration in the South Waziristan tribal region on Wednesday told tribesmen it was launching its own search and cordon operation to flush out militants. "Our patience is wearing out. They have been too slow in catching and turning over people we suspect harbour and facilitate Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants. Therefore, we told them we are launching our own search and cordon operation to back their efforts", Administrator South Waziristan, Muhammad Azam Khan, told Dawn by phone from the regional headquarters, Wana. According to him the âultimatumâ was conveyed to a large jirga of Ahmadzai Waziri tribesmen in Wana. Officials here, meanwhile, denied that the search-and-cordon operation had anything to do with the âhammer and anvilâ approach the US Commander in Afghanistan, Gen David Barnes, said his troops would adopt on the other side of the Pakistan-Afghan border. "This is our own initiative. It has nothing to do with what the Americans may or may not do on the other side. We are doing our job to flush out ... militants and thatâs all", Mr Azam Khan said. Officials said they were compelled to take a tougher action because of the rather slow movement of the tribal lashkar in their efforts to seize and hand over tribesmen harbouring and helping militants. A tribal force of volunteers has been able to hand over 48 of the 82 tribesmen wanted by the authorities on suspicion of sheltering and helping militants since early last month. While all those handed over to the authorities are relatively less important local tribesmen, officials said, the lashkar had not been able to get hold of a single foreign militant. Tribal elders at the Wednesday jirga told the authorities they were doing what they could and were fully cooperating with the government efforts to seize the wanted men but claimed that no foreign militant was there on their soil, a participant in the meeting told Dawn. "Of this we are sure. But we are doing what we can to catch and hand over to the government those wanted on suspicion of supporting foreign militants", a tribal elder said. The administrator of South Waziristan said he had given enough time to tribesmen to get those who were creating problems. "Now we have no other option but to search for such elements ourselves. We will be doing so in support of the tribal lashkar", Mr Azam Khan said. He acknowledged that the tribesmen had told him that there were no Al Qaeda militants in the tribal region, but said that the government wanted to ensure that they were not there. "We want to be doubly sure. We would launch the search operation at random and go for our targets in real time. We will act on real time. We have enough forces here and we can carry out operation as and when we receive information." Rehmatullah Wazir, Wanaâs deputy administrator, said he had warned the jirga the government would sentence any person found sheltering a foreign militant to seven years in jail, besides a fine of Rs 1.5 million. He added that the entire tribe would be held responsible under the collective responsibility clause of 1901 FCR and would be fined Rs 1 million. "We have made it clear to the tribes, we mean business. We have waited long enough. They are going to face the music if we catch a foreign militant from their place", Mr Wazir said. Posted by: Dan Darling 2004-02-19 |
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