 Pro-Taliban tribes in North Waziristan have buried ancient feuds and joined forces to fight the army, posing a new threat to President General Pervez MusharrafÂ’s anti-militant drive, analysts and officials have said. Up to 5,000 tribesmen are launching near-daily rocket and bomb attacks on military bases and convoys in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, while the headless bodies of alleged US spies are dumped on the streets, they said.
| This is it. This is the blow-off, the logical extension of all the pointless maneuverings and face-saving measures with the local jirgas and the tribal lashkars. Perv is being backed against the wall, and he's either going to have to do something or see the Wazoos set up shop on their own. |
Brought together by religion and their hatred of MusharrafÂ’s ties to Washington, the tribes are stepping up their defiance of military efforts to control the region and flush out foreign Al Qaeda suspects, they added.
| I don't have much confidence in the Heroic Pakistani Army™, which has never actually won a war despite the number of medals sported by the generals, being able to control the situation. |
Local sources said that the prolonged military campaign has resulted in Wazir tribesmen linking hands with their long-term rivals, the Dawar tribe, to protect their joint independence. The two firebrand clerics – Abdul Khaleq and Sadiq Noor - identified by the military as being behind the current resistance are both from the Dawar clan and are commanding members of their rival Wazir clan, the sources said. A former security official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that between 3,000 and 5,000 people had joined the local Taliban.
| Many of them were running around thumping drums as part of the tribal lashkars a year or two ago. |
Military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan,
| ... the very model of a modern major general... |
while stressing that the army was only employing force as a last resort, acknowledged that the use of force “does result in the army taking more casualties but our effort is to prevent collateral damage and we avoid using big force”.
| I suspect — strongly — that he's afraid of taking the casualties. Well-trained and well-disciplined armies keep collateral damage to a minimum. They also routinely defeat gangs of eye-rolling, face-making bully boyz, regardless of how fearsomely the brandish their weaponry. |
He admitted that the situation was “not that good” but stressed that the problem lay with militants from Afghanistan, along with some locals, who wanted to use the region to launch attacks on coalition troops across the border.
| He's still denying that Wazoo and Bajaur are the heart of the Taliban country. |
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