 TANK: When the Pakistan Army’s front line, in their war against terrorism, moved away and the Talibans took control of his home town, Baidar decided that it was time to leave. “The government is helpless. The Talibans, not the religious students but militant Taliban, are in complete control there,“ said the 30 year old Waziristan tribesman. Baidar closed down his medical store in Bazaar at Wana, the main town in South Waziristan, and moved to Tank, just across the boundary in NWFP. “The businessmen and the educated people are in real danger of being killed by the Talibans on suspicion of being informers of the America government,” said Baidar, who unlike many others, dared to give his name.
| Knowing how to read and write presents a danger to the Talibs, doesn't it? |
In the words of President Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan Army has defeated and chased Al- Qaeda out of South Waziristan in all the encounter that took place between late 2003 to early 2005.
| And if you can't take Perv's word for it, whose can you take? |
Now the focus has switched to North Waziristan, where more than 300 militants have been killed since the middle of 2005. A few of them are the leading members of Al Qaeda, such as an Egyptian wanted for the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa, but most of the 75 or so foreigners killed were from Chechnya or Islamist guerrillas from Central Asia.
| Or locals. Don't forget them. Just because there's a leavening of foreigners doesn't mean the locals aren't enthusiastically participating in the festivities. The foreigners are comfy and cozy there because the locals are so simpatico. |
In an interview with Avt Khyber TV on May 19, an independent Pashto-language channel, President Musharraf said that the operations against Al-Qaeda have been very successful, but then he contradicted his statement by saying, “Extremism and Talibanisation are spreading and now the focus has shifted from terrorism to extremism.”
| He probably didn't realize he was contradicting himself, since he's maintaining an entirely artificial distinction between the Arab and Chechen al-Qaeda bad boyz and the Talibs, whom he continues to see as a resource to be controlled and used. |
“If you say there is peace, I would agree with you that there is no trouble but if you ask whether there is any government I would not agree,” said a member of the Mehsuds, the other dominant tribe in South Waziristan, who had also moved to NWFP to escape the tyranny of the Talibans. The old social order has vanished from the towns and villages of Waziristan, a region populated by some of the most disobedient tribes on Pakistan’s side of the Pashtun Belt.
| It's a land of holy men and jirgas and the occasional sardar, sometimes working in concert, sometimes — like now — competing with each other. It's an illustration of what happens when you have a government of men, not laws. |
As the military campaign has moved towards the north, political assassinations have became common in the south.
| Meaning the war's not over, it's just entered a different phase. |
Unknown gunmen have started to ambush administrators, pro-government tribal elders and journalists and force them to flee with their families to the settled areas of NWFP. “Almost all Malakan (pro-government tribal elders) have left Waziristan,” said Baidar.
| That'd be the sardars, or whatever the local equivalent is. That leaves the jirgas and the holy men to face off. |
A power vacuum has opened the door for militant Muslim clerics, dubbed Pakistani Taliban by the media.
| And likely accurately so... |
President Musharraf said that they have no single leader, although they may have ties with Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Afghan Taliban chief. Residents say that his men roam around Wana with rocket launchers mounted on the back of their pick-up trucks.
| So maybe they should just be called Pashtun Taliban. I doubt there are a lot of Punjabis or Sindhis among them. They're the same guys who're trotting back and forth across the border, staging spring offensives and such. |
“We have brought peace in Waziristan. We have eliminated excesses, oppression, robberies and drugs from Waziristan,” said Omar during a telephonic interview with Reuters.
| "We have taken over. We are ruling with an iron fist." |
The militants have also opened offices and set up check posts in WanaÂ’s main market, to collect fees from vehicles entering the towns. They have also set up a court to conduct summary trials. Executions have become rare since the clerics increased the fine for murders, although a man convicted of killing his son was shot dead in front of a crowd of 150 tribesmen in late March. |