The army could be pulled out of the tribal areas if tribal chiefs “guarantee permanent peace” in the troubled Waziristan region near the Afghan border, President General Pervez Musharraf told a tribal jirga here at Governor’s House on Wednesday. “You people will have to first expel all foreign terrorists and secondly stop tribal militancy before we pull out the army,” Musharraf said. “If the tribesmen tighten the noose around the terrorists and put an end to Talibanisation on their own then the troops will be withdrawn from the tribal areas,” he saidA tribal elder suggested that the terrorism problem could best be tackled through the tribal system, or jirgas. “Our tribal system is so strong that it can handle the problem if we give it a chance,” tribal chieftain Malik Khan Zeb from North Waziristan told the president. His suggestion won NWFP Governor Khalilur Rehman’s approval. “The governor supported the proposal of Zeb,” an official communiqué read.