The Lawspeaker
06-07-2009, 02:58 PM
Pakistan Taps Tribes' Anger With Taliban (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124420355117388815.html)
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- When the Taliban began filtering into Gul Khan Mehsud's town along the Afghan border nine years ago, residents offered food, shelter and ammunition.
"How could we turn them away? The Americans were killing them. We wanted them to fight," says the 38-year-old from South Waziristan, one of the tribal regions that border Afghanistan and arguably the Taliban's most important stronghold in Pakistan. "We thought the Taliban would help us."
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AY177_PAKTRI_D_20090605180727.jpg <cite>
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People carry a man injured in a suicide bombing at a mosque Friday in the Upper Dir district, west of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Military leaders in the country say they are hoping anger among residents at the Pakistan Taliban will help fuel an anti-militant campaign and a coming offensive.
Instead, Mr. Mehsud was forced from his home in South Waziristan earlier this year after the Pakistan Taliban, which grew out of the militants who fled the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, accused one of his cousins of helping the U.S. plot missile strikes from drone aircraft.
Mr. Mehsud now lives with nearly two dozen relatives in two rooms in this city, the gateway to the tribal borderlands. "I didn't want to be shot," he says.
With Pakistan on the brink of taking its anti-militant campaign to the tribal areas on the restive border with Afghanistan, civilian and military leaders in Islamabad are banking on growing anger with the Pakistan Taliban among tribesmen such as Mr. Mehsud, whose Pashtun ethnic group straddles the frontier and lives in the core of the insurgency in both countries.
Popular support for the insurgents has undermined years of attempts to subdue the border areas, where the Taliban hold sway and al Qaeda operates openly. Residents who have fled report an intensifying reign of terror. The region is largely off limits to outsiders -- foreigners and Pakistanis alike -- and there are signs of growing disgust with the Taliban's hard-line tactics.
Pakistan's military hopes to channel that disenchantment behind its coming campaign in North and South Waziristan, which is likely to be grueling. An estimated 15,000 militants from the northwestern mountains of Pakistan and parts of eastern Afghanistan have massed in the area before an offensive expected to begin in the next month or two.
Anger at the Taliban in tribal areas mirrors a broader anti-Taliban sentiment across Pakistan that backed the military's recent offensive in the Swat Valley, a onetime vacation area overrun by the Taliban in the past two years.
The military launched its assault in Swat, which is roughly 100 miles from Islamabad, about a month ago after the Taliban violated a peace agreement that gave them control of the area.
Pakistan's top brass say the army has cleared militants from most of Swat, but there still are pockets of resistance in the valley and sporadic violence in areas around the region. On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people attending afternoon prayers at a mosque in the Upper Dir district, a remote area to the west of Swat. According to Pakistani officials, there was no immediate claim of responsibility, but one local government official blamed the Taliban, saying it was likely in retaliation for the Swat offensive.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AY166_PAKTRI_NS_20090605183226.gif
The tribal areas -- remote, mountainous and untamed by outside authority for centuries -- represent a far greater challenge. Pakistani intelligence officials say the top leaders of the Swat Taliban have retreated, along with hundreds of followers, to North and South Waziristan.
North and South Waziristan are part of the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a rugged region cut off physically and politically from the rest of the country. Unlike Pakistan's four main provinces, the region has historically been under only loose federal government control.
There still is broad popular support in the area for militants fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan. And the Pakistan Taliban hasn't lost its allure among the tens of thousands of people whose relatives were killed or homes were flattened in military attempts to reassert authority in the tribal areas.
"Each time there is badly aimed artillery firing or the Americans fire missiles, if one person is killed, all his brothers and sons and cousins join the Taliban," said Hazrat Muhammad, 36, who last year fled fighting in the Mohmand tribal area near South Waziristan.
Even among those, such as Mr. Muhammad, who say they now oppose the Taliban, there's deep distrust of the government, which has done little for the tribal areas since Pakistan was created six decades ago.
In social and economic indicators, the region trails the rest of Pakistan. Per-capita annual income is about $500 -- roughly half the national average -- and literacy hovers under 20%.
Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former official who served as top administrator for both Waziristans, said the people "don't want the Taliban. But they don't want the army. They want to go back to their old ways."
The old ways allowed Islamabad to govern through a network of moderate tribal elders, known as maliks. Pakistani law didn't apply to the tribal areas, and the army stayed out of the region.
The system, which originated more than a century ago when Britain ruled the subcontinent, was upended by the Taliban and al Qaeda after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Hundreds of maliks were killed or forced to flee, and the few government officials in the region brought to heel.
The army sent in soldiers in 2003, but they did little to restore civilian authority. A new generation of Taliban warlords filled the vacuum, banding together in 2007 to form the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and fight Islamabad.
The group's most powerful commanders are based in the Waziristans.
Among them: Baitullah Mehsud, the nominal leader of the Pakistan Taliban.
In one indication of the growing anger at the Pakistan Taliban, a rival from within Mr. Mehsud's tribe is gathering fighters to challenge the commander.
"The government is an enemy," said Gul Khan Mehsud. "First the Taliban must go. Then the army should go," he said. Asked who would then govern the tribal areas, he replied, "We can work that out ourselves."
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- When the Taliban began filtering into Gul Khan Mehsud's town along the Afghan border nine years ago, residents offered food, shelter and ammunition.
"How could we turn them away? The Americans were killing them. We wanted them to fight," says the 38-year-old from South Waziristan, one of the tribal regions that border Afghanistan and arguably the Taliban's most important stronghold in Pakistan. "We thought the Taliban would help us."
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AY177_PAKTRI_D_20090605180727.jpg <cite>
</cite>
<cite></cite>
<cite>
</cite>
People carry a man injured in a suicide bombing at a mosque Friday in the Upper Dir district, west of the Swat Valley in Pakistan. Military leaders in the country say they are hoping anger among residents at the Pakistan Taliban will help fuel an anti-militant campaign and a coming offensive.
Instead, Mr. Mehsud was forced from his home in South Waziristan earlier this year after the Pakistan Taliban, which grew out of the militants who fled the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan, accused one of his cousins of helping the U.S. plot missile strikes from drone aircraft.
Mr. Mehsud now lives with nearly two dozen relatives in two rooms in this city, the gateway to the tribal borderlands. "I didn't want to be shot," he says.
With Pakistan on the brink of taking its anti-militant campaign to the tribal areas on the restive border with Afghanistan, civilian and military leaders in Islamabad are banking on growing anger with the Pakistan Taliban among tribesmen such as Mr. Mehsud, whose Pashtun ethnic group straddles the frontier and lives in the core of the insurgency in both countries.
Popular support for the insurgents has undermined years of attempts to subdue the border areas, where the Taliban hold sway and al Qaeda operates openly. Residents who have fled report an intensifying reign of terror. The region is largely off limits to outsiders -- foreigners and Pakistanis alike -- and there are signs of growing disgust with the Taliban's hard-line tactics.
Pakistan's military hopes to channel that disenchantment behind its coming campaign in North and South Waziristan, which is likely to be grueling. An estimated 15,000 militants from the northwestern mountains of Pakistan and parts of eastern Afghanistan have massed in the area before an offensive expected to begin in the next month or two.
Anger at the Taliban in tribal areas mirrors a broader anti-Taliban sentiment across Pakistan that backed the military's recent offensive in the Swat Valley, a onetime vacation area overrun by the Taliban in the past two years.
The military launched its assault in Swat, which is roughly 100 miles from Islamabad, about a month ago after the Taliban violated a peace agreement that gave them control of the area.
Pakistan's top brass say the army has cleared militants from most of Swat, but there still are pockets of resistance in the valley and sporadic violence in areas around the region. On Friday, a suicide bomber killed at least 30 people attending afternoon prayers at a mosque in the Upper Dir district, a remote area to the west of Swat. According to Pakistani officials, there was no immediate claim of responsibility, but one local government official blamed the Taliban, saying it was likely in retaliation for the Swat offensive.
http://s.wsj.net/public/resources/images/NA-AY166_PAKTRI_NS_20090605183226.gif
The tribal areas -- remote, mountainous and untamed by outside authority for centuries -- represent a far greater challenge. Pakistani intelligence officials say the top leaders of the Swat Taliban have retreated, along with hundreds of followers, to North and South Waziristan.
North and South Waziristan are part of the so-called Federally Administered Tribal Areas, a rugged region cut off physically and politically from the rest of the country. Unlike Pakistan's four main provinces, the region has historically been under only loose federal government control.
There still is broad popular support in the area for militants fighting U.S. and North Atlantic Treaty Organization forces in Afghanistan. And the Pakistan Taliban hasn't lost its allure among the tens of thousands of people whose relatives were killed or homes were flattened in military attempts to reassert authority in the tribal areas.
"Each time there is badly aimed artillery firing or the Americans fire missiles, if one person is killed, all his brothers and sons and cousins join the Taliban," said Hazrat Muhammad, 36, who last year fled fighting in the Mohmand tribal area near South Waziristan.
Even among those, such as Mr. Muhammad, who say they now oppose the Taliban, there's deep distrust of the government, which has done little for the tribal areas since Pakistan was created six decades ago.
In social and economic indicators, the region trails the rest of Pakistan. Per-capita annual income is about $500 -- roughly half the national average -- and literacy hovers under 20%.
Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former official who served as top administrator for both Waziristans, said the people "don't want the Taliban. But they don't want the army. They want to go back to their old ways."
The old ways allowed Islamabad to govern through a network of moderate tribal elders, known as maliks. Pakistani law didn't apply to the tribal areas, and the army stayed out of the region.
The system, which originated more than a century ago when Britain ruled the subcontinent, was upended by the Taliban and al Qaeda after the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Hundreds of maliks were killed or forced to flee, and the few government officials in the region brought to heel.
The army sent in soldiers in 2003, but they did little to restore civilian authority. A new generation of Taliban warlords filled the vacuum, banding together in 2007 to form the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and fight Islamabad.
The group's most powerful commanders are based in the Waziristans.
Among them: Baitullah Mehsud, the nominal leader of the Pakistan Taliban.
In one indication of the growing anger at the Pakistan Taliban, a rival from within Mr. Mehsud's tribe is gathering fighters to challenge the commander.
"The government is an enemy," said Gul Khan Mehsud. "First the Taliban must go. Then the army should go," he said. Asked who would then govern the tribal areas, he replied, "We can work that out ourselves."