XPost: alt.conspiracy.new-world-order, alt, military   
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   From: mobius@nospam.please   
      
   MSNBC.com   
      
   Border Backlash   
      
   Musharraf's attempt to police the tribal areas with the Army has bred a new   
   generation of extremists.   
      
   By Ron Moreau and Zahid Hussain   
   Newsweek International   
      
   July 31, 2006 issue - Just over three years ago, under pressure from   
   Washington to stop Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters from crossing the porous   
   border into Afghanistan, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf began   
   dispatching tens of thousands of Pakistani troops to the country's tribal   
   regions. The goal: to beat back the Islamic radicals in and around the seven   
   tribal agencies bordering on eastern and southern Afghanistan. Today some   
   80,000 Pakistani troops are stationed in outposts and garrisons along the   
   rugged frontier.   
      
   But, ironically, instead of quelling extremism, the military occupation has   
   fueled it. Radical Islamic clerics throughout Pakistan's semiautonomous   
   tribal belt now preach the hard-line gospel, day and night. Their fiery   
   jihadist sermons exhort people to live by the harsh code of Islamic   
   Sharia-or else. In Wana, the capital of the South Waziristan tribal agency,   
   extremists recently used dynamite to blow up a radio station for playing   
   music. If these radicals sound like Pakistan's equivalent of Mullah Mohammed   
   Omar's ousted Taliban regime, they are. The tribal militants call themselves   
   "Pakistani Taliban," or members of a newly coined and loosely knit entity,   
   the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. They openly recruit young men to fight   
   with the Taliban in Afghanistan and run their own Islamic kangaroo courts   
   that, on occasion, stage public executions. The local police simply stay out   
   of the way. "Fearing for their lives, no one dares to challenge them," says   
   Afrasiab Khattak, former chairman of the independent Human Rights Commission   
   of Pakistan.   
      
   The Pakistani Army has had some success. It's killed 180 foreign fighters   
   and captured some 300 foreign-born militants, including Qaeda operatives, in   
   periodic fighting, according to military spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan.   
   He says some 370 local militants have also been killed. But the Pakistani   
   Army has also paid a high price, losing 350 of its troops. And on balance,   
   the Army has little to show for all the carnage. "There has been some   
   success in hunting down Al Qaeda," says retired Pakistani Army Lt. Gen.   
   Talat Masood. "But there has only been failure in terms of controlling the   
   local Taliban."   
      
   Not only are the Pakistani militants now stronger than ever, the links   
   between the pro-Taliban, ethnic Pashtun tribes in Pakistan and the Afghan   
   Taliban across the border, who are also Pashtuns, have been strengthened.   
   The resurgence of the Afghan Taliban, who last week briefly captured two   
   district towns in southern Afghanistan, has only increased the morale and   
   muscle of their Pakistani brethren. "What was a containable problem has spun   
   out of control," says Ayaz Amir, a political columnist for the Dawn daily   
   newspaper. The invigorated Pakistani militants have boosted their recruiting   
   of Afghan and local youths studying in madrassas along the mountainous   
   border, and are sending them into Afghanistan to fight. "There is now a   
   greater cross-border traffic between Waziristan and Afghanistan than before   
   the Army moved in," adds Amir. And both Waziristan and the border areas of   
   neighboring Baluchistan have become even more hospitable rear bases and   
   havens for Taliban commanders and fighters.   
      
   Before the military moved into the tribal areas, the militants had been   
   sympathetic with, but not actively committed to, the Afghan Taliban's cause.   
   Now that has changed. "The military's presence has brought no plus for the   
   tribals," says General Masood. "It has made them more angry, dissatisfied,   
   antigovernment and actively pro-Taliban." Perhaps more important, the Army's   
   occupation upset the traditional governing balance in the tribal areas,   
   which has changed little from the days of British colonial rule. The tribal   
   agencies are not governed by Pakistan's Constitution or legal codes. Rather,   
   government-appointed political agents hold sway by offering patronage   
   (chiefly large amounts of money) to maliks, or tribal elders, who are   
   charged with maintaining law and order according to custom. But as an   
   occupying force, the Army took control over everything from security to   
   development. "It marginalized the maliks and the entire administrative   
   system, and didn't replace it with anything other than military rule," says   
   General Masood. "That was a huge mistake. It created a vacuum that was   
   quickly filled by the militants."   
      
   This Pakistani neo-Taliban force has fought aggressively. Nowadays, no Army   
   convoy can move through Waziristan without an escort of helicopter gunships.   
   Over the past year the local Taliban has killed more than 100 pro-government   
   maliks, and many more have fled the tribal areas in terror. Scores of   
   so-called military collaborators have been murdered. General Sultan strongly   
   denies that the Taliban is running the show. "To say that these people are   
   in control is too much of an exaggeration," he insists. In a nationally   
   televised address to the nation late last week, Musharraf acknowledged the   
   "wave of Talibanization in tribal areas" but vowed "not to tolerate this   
   regressive trend."   
      
   But the president seems to be in a bind. He's already tried military force,   
   and there are political considerations besides. He doesn't want to alienate   
   Pakistan's pro-Taliban and pro-militant religious parties, the Muttahida   
   Majlis-e-Amal, or MMA, which he may need in next year's parliamentary   
   elections. To that end, the government employed MMA leader Fazlur Rehman to   
   negotiate a monthlong ceasefire with the militants, which expires at the end   
   of this month. To formalize a peace deal with the militants, the government   
   has organized a 45-man Loya Jirga, or tribal council, consisting of tribal   
   notables, including several MMA leaders, that began meeting in Miramshah   
   last week. As a price for peace, the militants are demanding that the   
   government release more than 60 jailed extremist leaders and that the Army   
   dismantle its checkpoints in Waziristan. In a sign of good will last week   
   the government dismantled two checkpoints on key regional highways and   
   released 34 militant leaders.   
      
   Most Pakistanis are skeptical of the proposed peace deal. In the past,   
   similar arrangements broke down because the militants simply failed to honor   
   them. "Peace needs to be made ... but it should not come at the expense of   
   the area's Talibanization," declared an editorial in The News, a Pakistani   
   English-language daily, this month.   
      
   According to General Sultan, the government's main aim is to restore the   
   rule of its political agents and tribal maliks, and then bring economic   
   development to the largely backward and impoverished area. General Masood   
      
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