Suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban militants hiding out in this country’s semiautonomous tribal belt have ignored an April 30 deadline for foreigners to register with the government and lay down their arms. Pakistani authorities this weekend quietly extended the amnesty offer, expressing hope that an extra seven days would convince the militants to live in harmony with the federal government here, and to cease attacking US troops over the Afghan border. "This has been a farce from the start," says Ahmed Rashid, author of The Taliban. "I think it won’t be long before we see some action from the Americans on this."
In March, Pakistan’s military got badly bruised when a mission to capture or kill an estimated 400 extremists in South Waziristan left more than 100 soldiers and civilians dead, and failed to capture any Al Qaeda. Pakistani authorities then convinced tribal chieftans in South Waziristan to form a lashkar, or tribal army, to hunt down the militants themselves. The irregular force staged a war dance before heading to hills with red ribbons tied to their rifles so they would know not to shoot each other. However, they failed to round up foreign militants.
| But they did have a good time, and they looked very ferocious... |
Finally, last week, a top commander of the Northwest Frontier Province, Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, traveled to South Waziristan to meet local militants who support the foreign fighters, telling a cheering crowd wearing long robes and enormous turbans that, "the impression this is the den of terrorists has been proven wrong." It was an ironic statement, given that video footage of the meeting shows one of the militants, Naik Mohammad, arriving to greet military officers with his Uzbek bodyguard in tow. Local sources in South Waziristan say the Islamic Movement for Uzbekistan, an extremist group closely allied to Al Qaeda and to Mr. Mohammed, organized his security for the event. |