The Taliban are negotiating with the Ahmedzai Wazir tribes the return of former militant commanders and their foreign fighters to Wana after they were flushed out in last year’s popular drive, a tribal elder said on Thursday. “However, we have told the Taliban that the former commanders are welcome to return, but they cannot bring Uzbek or other foreign militants back to Wana or surrounding areas,” a tribal elder who was part of the jirga, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Daily Times in a phone call from Wana.
The Taliban leadership had invited influential Ahmedzai Wazir elders to a jirga in Wana on March 31 to discuss possible permission for the return of ex-militant commanders along with foreigners who fled when local Taliban leader Maulvi Nazir led a campaign against foreign militants, especially Uzbeks.Chaos, lawlessness: “It was a unanimous decision of the jirga that foreign militants were not acceptable by any means as their return would plunge the area back into chaos, target-killing, and lawlessness,” the elder said.
The local tribesÂ’ rejection of the return of foreign militants to Wana comes after two air strikes by the United States since February 28 in Kaloosha and Wana respectively, pinpointing foreign militants. The two strikes left more than 30 local and foreign militants dead.
Islamic Emirates, a Taliban-led parallel government in the Tribal Areas, is negotiating the return of five key Wazir militant commanders – Ghulam Jan, Maulvi Abbas, Haji Umar, Maulvi Javed Karmazkhel, and Noor Islam – return to Wana, along with foreign militants who accompany Taliban leader Maulvi Nazir. The five were commanders for Taliban leader Nek Muhammad, who was killed in a missile attack in Wana in June 2004. They were ‘hosts’ to Uzbek militants who local residents remember as “butchers” for their alleged atrocities against the Wazir populace. The five men, according to tribal sources, are being “sheltered by Taliban leaders who sympathise with foreign militants” in South and North Waziristan.
Around 150 pro-government elders were killed between December 2004 and February 2007 in and around Wana, and Uzbek militants were prime suspects for all these killings and for other crimes. Sources said that Maulvi Nazir was “showing [a] soft corner” for the five commanders and also the foreign militants after the ‘Islamic Emirates’ “guaranteed good behaviour of the foreign militants”; however the sources added that the Ahmedzai Wazir tribes’ unwillingness would be difficult for him to bypass, as he had signed a peace accord with them.
Nazir is taking the Ahmedzai Wazir tribes into confidence on every major issue before making any decision, and local analysts say that because of a “still unconsolidated and weak position” he could not ignore the local tribes’ strength in protecting him against any attack from foes.