 The Bajaur Agency administration is finding it difficult to get tribal chieftains on its side against wanted militant Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, who is suspected to be sheltering Al Qaeda-linked militants in the border area with Afghanistan. Sources close to the Bajaur administration said that they had tried three times since the US air strike on Damadola village on January 13 to raise a lashkar, or tribal army, to track down Muhammad or make him leave Bajaur. “They (tribal chieftains) are wary of getting on board because speaking openly against Al Qaeda can invite serious problems from the militants,” the sources said.
| 'Nother words, it's not the gummint that's in charge, right? We knew that. |
The administration was able to put together a lashkar against Muhammad last year, but it resulted in three attacks by the militants on senior tribal elders, a tribal elder told Daily Times. “It is difficult to take on Al Qaeda since the organisation shows no mercy to people working against it and for the government,” said the tribal elder, who wished not to be named for fear of reprisals from the administration and Al Qaeda.
| "So it's best we do nothing. That's because we're ferocious Pashtun tribesmen and nobody screws with us." |
Malik Shahjehan, key pro-government tribal elder from Bajaur, went underground last year after militants tried to kill him and his family. He was also part of the all-tribal jirga that negotiated peace in Wana with Waziristan elders in 2004. In 2005, suspected militants tried three unsuccessful assassination attempts on Shahjehan, his son Malik Sultan Zeb and his son-in-law Dr Muhammad Tahir after a lashkar set fire to the houses of Muhammad and his relatives. “Three jirgas have been called since the Damadola incident but most tribal elders stayed away for fear that Al Qaeda-linked militants may target them as they are targeting people in Waziristan,” the sources close to the administration said.
| For being so ferocious, they're easily blackmailed, aren't they? How about if we offer to kill them if they don't cooperate? |
Muhammad appears not to have been affected by the US missile attack in Damadola village, which killed at least 13 civilians, and is still roaming around freely in an area just 15 minutes from Bajaur chief administrator Faheem Wazir’s office in Khar. “I would be privileged if Osama Bin Laden or Mullah Muhammad Omar accept my invitation. They are welcome any time and I will receive them as per Pashtun tradition,” he told reporters in Damadola a day after the US missile strike, though he denied Ayman al-Zahawri was in the area on the night of the attack.
| "Nope. Nope. Wudn't him." |
Muhammad, 36, led thousands of volunteers into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban against the Washington-backed Northern Alliance soon after the 9/11 attacks on the US. “He (Muhammad) is young and as emotional as Nek Muhammad (the Wana militant killed in a missile attack in June 2004) and a diehard mujahid,” Damadola villagers told Daily Times.
| Sounds like a case of Nekrophilia to me. |
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