LAHORE: The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan is a rebel organisation in Waziristan that gained de facto recognition from the government of Pakistan on September 5, 2006, as a result of negotiations between Islamabad and local tribesmen to end the undeclared Waziristan war, according to an entry in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopaedia. “The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan has close affiliations with the Taliban although it is a separate entity,” reads the entry. “Waziristan is often mentioned as a haven for Al Qaeda fighters, who will be required to either leave the area or act peacefully as a condition of the negotiated peace accord.” It has also given the map and flag of the new ‘de facto state’. Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasneem Aslam dismissed the report as “baseless propaganda”, adding that the government would “take immediate notice” of the information on the website. “We have repeatedly cleared that no agreement has been signed with local Taliban,” she said. “Basically, the September 5, 2006 agreement is between the federal government and local tribal leaders. There is no agreement with the Taliban at all.”
According to the website, the ‘Islamic Emirate of Waziristan’ controls the area of North Waziristan Agency and South Waziristan Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). “In practice, the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan has replaced these two agency-level governments as the political body controlling the area, although formal dissolution of the former governments was not part of the truce agreement. “Partisans declared a new state, the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, in February 2006. The Pakistan government effectively acknowledged the organisation in the peace agreement of September 5, 2006 which referred to the organisation in the agreement, however the agreement does not recognise the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan as an independent state, but only as a security body charged with fulfilling the obligations of the treaty.”
“There is speculation that Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders have found refuge in the area controlled by the Emirate, which is a staging ground for militant operations in Afghanistan. A condition of the truce is that the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan no longer support these operations. Local observers view the truce accord as a prelude to ‘hot pursuit’ chases of Mujahideen into Pakistan by NATO forces in Afghanistan,” it added. The federal government has said several times that it plans to ban several websites and web pages through the Ministry of Information and Technology and Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA).