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Afghanistan/South Asia
Pakistan seeking tribal good will in al-Qaeda hunt
2004-07-15
With its freshly-built roads, schools, clinics and wells, the tribal district of Mohmand along the Afghan border is a showpiece for the Pakistan armed forces. Just 200 kilometres further south in Waziristan, the military is engaged in a bloody conflict with local tribesmen sheltering Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who have fled over the border from Afghanistan. But in Mohmand, some 50 kilometres northwest of Peshawar, the soldiers see themselves more as aid workers than fighters. ‘We have asked the Army to put help us out of our misery,’ said local chief Mohammed Ali Halimazai in the village of Khalanai, which for the past year has been the local headquarters of the military. ‘Our children need development, we no longer want to be considered backward,’ said the tribal chief, accompanied by around 20 other local chiefs who were invited by the Army to meet foreign journalists on a rare Press trip to the area. In the middle of this region of jagged peaks and arid plateau, some 400,000 people from six different tribes live in extreme poverty and isolation.

‘For decades we have been left alone, but now all that is gone,’ explained Malik Ashraf, a wizened old man of 28 with a white beard and a revolver strapped to his waist. He is the chief of a village bearing his name, Ashrafabad, where he has given the military some land to build a school. The buildings has no furniture or teachers yet, but nonetheless around a dozen kids were lined up for the Press and military to recite the alphabet.

A few metres away, two wells are being dug. ‘Before, the villagers had to walk 20 kilometres to fetch water,’ said General Mohammed Iqbal, the commander of the brigade in charge of development aid for Mohmand. So far around 100 kilometres of roads have been built, along with dozens of schools and clinics, and around 200 wells. Most of the projects have been built and financed by the military. While the Army refuses to divulge figures, the local civilian administration estimates it has spent around 784 million rupees ($15.3 million) on development projects this year.
Posted by:Dan Darling

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