| Submit your comments on this article |
| India-Pakistan |
| IMU leader met with MMA cabinet officials |
| 2006-03-30 |
| The violence anticipated in the Khyber Agency for the last year and a half has broken out into a war. Two armies have clashed and left behind 24 dead in Bara, while the federal government, which looks after the area, has practically looked on to see which brand of Islam wins in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Supporters of one faction have been attacking the supporters of their rival, putting everything to sack and killing anyone who resists. Both the armies are led by “outsiders”, one from Afghanistan and the other from sectarian Hangu in the NWFP. Several Afghans too have been killed in the latest upsurge of fighting. There has also been Taliban-fashion hostage taking. The NWFP governor, Khalil ur Rehman, who is in charge of the area on behalf of the federal government, has finally sent in security forces numbering 8,000 to restore order. Was the government waiting for the two warring factions to kill each other before it would act to mop up the debris? If that was the strategy it has been at the cost of the average citizen. Like anywhere else in Pakistan’s “buffer areas”, the population of Bara has been fleeing in the face of escalating violence in the last five months. During this “waiting” period the factions have built their militias and armed and entrenched themselves in castle-like strongholds. There is even an FM radio rousing the population to sectarian passions. Everybody knew what was happening. As one tribesman put it: “The government did not take the rivalry between the two groups seriously. The leaders of both groups held big public meetings to rally support.” The two men at the heart of the problem are Pir Saif ur Rehman”who arrived in the area some time ago to set up his “mystical” order among the predominantly Deobandi local population”and Mufti Munir Shakir, a tough Deobandi who hates the Shias and raised hell in Hangu before he was made to flee from there. Some people say the war in Bara is a Deobandi-Barelvi war. Even if the two orders are not directly involved, it is clearly a conflict between two approaches to Islam. That Peshawar and Islamabad took so long to grasp this fact is quite shocking. What did the government do when Mufti Shakir set up his FM radio and organised his Lashkar-e-Islami? Nothing. What did it do when “foreigner” Pir Saif ur Rehman began converting the local population and becoming rich with the gold ornaments that the believing women of Bara gave him in return for his “miracles”? Nothing. Now Bara is divided between the two warring men of God. They have set up their opposed jurisdictions in the area. Mufti Shakir is pursuing a system of punishments on the order of the Taliban under the doctrine of amr and nahi and enjoys the support of the majority. If the government takes “needful” action now, it is going to come up against the obstacles created by its negligence over the past months. The “Taliban” have already set up government in some areas of Waziristan and are handing out arbitrary “Islamic” punishments because the government has been absent from FATA (along the 2,400 kilometre Afghan border) under the fig leaf of the special Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR). Pakistan inherited the “badlands” from the British Raj, called the “buffer” region against invasion from the west. Today there is disorder in the seven “agencies” (Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, Orakzai, North Waziristan and South Waziristan). And it is catching on in other parts of Pakistan too. Shockingly, only 30 percent of Pakistan appears to be under normal law and order, if you add Balochistan, where only five percent of the province is policed, and the “katcha” of Sindh, stretching for 850 kilometres from Kashmore to the sea, where dacoits rule. The “outsiders” problem is related directly to the question of jurisdiction of state. For far too long the state has allowed a vast territory to remain in a kind of administrative limbo. There is a whole series of negative fallouts from this “extraterritoriality”. Pakistan’s industry cannot survive because of smuggling in these areas: the custom duty alone thus lost comes to $5 billion annually, almost equal to Pakistan’s trade gap in recent years. The people in these areas have become dependent on sources of income outside Pakistan that the state law doesn’t recognise. Unsatisfied by the FCR administered on the basis of jirgas of dubious reputation, the people have looked to the Taliban-like Muslim puritans to give them reprieve from crime through a savage system of reprisals. The government says it wants to re-establish the state’s jurisdiction in these areas. But the bitter truth is that the lawlessness of Pakistan’s “badlands” has spread to the settled areas and people in urban Pakistan are increasingly resorting to violence while the police and the lower courts, allowed to deteriorate in performance, simply stand aside and watch. The bomb explosion in Khyber Bazaar, Peshawar, on Tuesday killed one person and injured 16. The bomb, fixed to a motorbike, was big enough to indicate that its source was no amateur bomb-maker. It has actually been identified as being of the same make as those found in North Waziristan after the “foreigners” fled from there. Awami National Party (ANP) leader Lateef Afridi, who narrowly escaped death, has registered an FIR against two of his known enemies. Mr Afridi should consider another angle. He is the only leader in his party who has been outspoken about the presence of “foreign” terrorists in the tribal areas. In some of his statements he has been more revealing than might be considered “healthy” by anyone living in the NWFP. (Consider this: Uzbek Al Qaeda leader Tahir Yuldashev held a meeting in a forest in North Waziristan which was attended by some cabinet members of the MMA government from Peshawar.) The bomb incident should be looked at from all possible angles because it could be the beginning of another desperate period of “assertion” from elements that have made Pakistan their home. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 "Was the government waiting for the two warring factions to kill each other before it would act to mop up the debris?" sounds like a plan, to me. |
| Posted by: liberalhawk 2006-03-30 13:07 |
| #2 Pakistan sounds like a failing state When was it ever passing? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2006-03-30 10:13 |
| #1 Is it really true that only 30% of the country is under 'normal law and order?" We all know about Waziristan, the NWF Province, Azad Kashmir, and Baluchistan -- but even much of Sind? Pakistan sounds like a failing state -- Congo on the Indus -- but with nukes. And its another one of our supposed alllies -- even though the vast majority of its people want to kill us. What options do we have here? I would love to hear the considered opinions of the Rantburg community. |
| Posted by: pagan infidel 2006-03-30 10:11 |