 Music and TV have been banned. Women are confined to their homes. Shops must close five times a day for prayers, an edict enforced by armed religious police who patrol the streets. These changes, say local residents and reporters, have come just within the past few months to Waziristan, a restive region along the Afghan border that is seen as a possible hideout for Al Qaeda leaders.
| When you find Talibs enthusiastically oppressing everybody in sight, that's a pretty good sign the place is a "possible hideout for al-Qaeda leaders." Whenever they set up, they do the very same thing, which is to enforce their view of how everybody else should live. |
Last year, under pressure from the US to clean up the semi-autonomous zone, Pakistan launched military operations that ended 10 months ago in a peace deal with some rebel tribes. Now the harsh edicts and an upsurge in violence suggest that Waziristan is far from pacified.
| The area's under the political control of the MMA, which is the "legitimate" face of hard boyz. The locals claim to love their holy men 'most to death. So in this case, the change is only incremental. |
Observers say it is slipping back into the hands of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, despite the 60,000 Pakistani troops and paramilitaries garrisoned there.
| I doubt it's "slipping back into" their hands. They're only showing their hand more clearly because they feel stronger. 60,000 Pakistani troops is a significant force, I guess, when opposed by shopkeepers and Qadianis and Shiites, but they don't do really well against other armed forces, not even Pashtun irregulars. |
"Since [the deal], the government authority seems to have become weak," says Rahimullah Yusufzai, a journalist who reports on Pakistan's tribal area. "The vacuum has been filled by these militants."
| The government's authority was merely revealed as weak. The peculiar arrangement within the tribal areas actually excludes actual government control, demanding, rather good behavior from the tribals. They're free, in most cases, to define "good." |
In a tally compiled from official sources and newspaper reports, more than 60 pro-government tribal and religious leaders have been killed, two local journalists have been gunned down, and hundreds more people have fled since February. "They do what they feel like doing and there is no one to stop them," says a local reporter there who left the South Waziristan district capital Wana after receiving threats from militants. "And it's the foreign elements among them," he says, referring to Al Qaeda, "who are calling the shots."
| Those are the ones the local big turbans keep assuring the gummint aren't there. |
Just this past week, a bomb blast in the bazaar in Jandula left 12 dead. Separately, four paramilitary troops patrolling Wana were kidnapped by militants. And in North Waziristan, armed Islamic seminary students clashed with a group of bandits, killing at least 20. With a ferocity that harkens back to the early days of the Taliban, the students hung their victims in the streets of the district capital Miranshah, stuffing their mouths full of money.
| It's well it should "harken back to the early days of the Taliban." It was Taliban who dunnit. The Talibs originated in the madrassahs on the Pak side of the border. These are the very same people, with the very same education, doing the very same things. The Pak gummint hasn't drained the fever swamps, so the 12-year-old seminary larvae continue to grow into 20-year-old psychopaths. |
The violence came days after an unmanned aircraft killed five suspected militants, including, Pakistani officials say, Abu Hamza Rabia, a top Al Qaeda figure.
| Cheezed 'em off, did it? Or were they going to do it anyway? My guess is the latter. |
Senior Pakistani officials say it's too soon to jump to the conclusion that terrorists were behind last week's violence. "I don't think it should raise eyebrows or concern," says Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukut Sultan.
| ... adjusting his rose-colored glasses. |
"It appears these incidents are more related to local politics between the tribes.... It is more related to that than terrorism."
| The two are as intertwined as the threads in the general's turban, as he well knows. Therefore he has a reason to pooh-pooh the thought... |
But analysts point out that tribal battle lines have been drawn of late between groups that allied themselves with the Army, and those who sided with the militants. There is increasing evidence that Arab, Uzbek, and Chechen fighters linked to Al Qaeda are operating in the area, according to Mr. Yusufzai and others. Locals, none of them willing to be quoted, said the militants had gone so far as to open recruiting offices in North and South Waziristan to recruit fighters for their "jihad" against the Pakistan Army and US forces in Afghanistan. Video released by the militants, and sold in local shops as part of their recruitment drive, show militants training openly.
| I would guess that we — the Americans, not our Pak allies — have very good photo maps of where those training camps are located. We may share that information with the Paks, but when we do my guess would be that they claim the information's wrong — that they're not training camps, but... ummm... Pashtun recreation areas or something. |
The militants have even held public gatherings, the most recent in October to mark the year anniversary since the Pakistan military bombed a militant camp in Dela Khula, killing 40 of their comrades. As part of the February deal, militants pledged to renounce violence and end attacks in Afghanistan. Yet Afghan officials in the three provinces that border Waziristan, contacted by the Monitor, say the frequency and sophistication of cross-border attacks have actually increased.
| Could it possibly be that they were lying through their turbans for tactical gain? Has that ever happened before? Lemme think, now... |
"They launch suicide attacks, plant bombs, and launch ambushes," says Paktia police chief Aghul Suleiman Khan. "Increasingly, we see Arab fighters leading them."
Here's the trend that's been growing under the noses of the guys who should be watching it: Want a caliphate? Don't bother waiting for the local government to fall. Just set up your own. Put your holy men in place and start enforcing your favorite flavor of shariah. Nobody's going to do anything to stop you.
You can see it in full flower in Waziristan, but you can also see it it Fallujah and Ramadi. You can see it happening right now in Bangla. You can see it in Luton and in Gay Paree and in Barcelona and, still in infancy, in Toronto. In Fallujah and Ramadi we have the luxury of boming them out. Every other place, they're growing like a cancer, while the governments who're entrusted with the safety of their citizens dither and argue and pretend it's not so.
Watch the trend. It's not going to be pleasant. |
|