Waziristan - an historic gamble
General Musharraf is battling to contain rebellious tribes and pro-Taliban elements in the Afghan border region of North Waziristan. The gamble may prove ultimately as futile as British attempts to subdue the area before independence.
Mark Tran
Wednesday October 10, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Local residents flee fierce fighting between Islamic militants and Pakistani security forces in the tribal area of North Waziristan. Photograph: Abdullah Noor/AP
The fierce clashes in remote North Waziristan have become the deadliest since Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, sided with Washington following the September 11 attacks.
Pakistan is now using fighter planes, a significant escalation considering the military has preferred the more accurate missile-firing helicopter gunships. The death toll has been high with the army reporting up to 200 militants and 47 soldiers dead. Thousands of villagers have fled the area near the Afghan border.
The latest upsurge followed an ambush of soldiers on Saturday. The military decided to hit back hard, including fighter bombing runs, amid reports that dozens of captured soldiers had been decapitated or burned to death.
Waziristan, a mountainous region in north-west Pakistan, has long been troublesome for Islamabad, as it proved for the British Raj before independence. Tribal raids were a constant headache for the British, who launched frequent punitive raids that more often than not were futile.
Gen Musharraf faces an old problem but with a deadly new twist. Nowadays, Waziristan has become a safe haven for al-Qaida remnants driven out of Afghanistan in 2001 and who can count on the support, reluctant or otherwise, of local tribesmen who have long resisted central government authority. The area also acts as a base for Taliban guerrillas fighting Nato in Afghanistan.
But asserting Islamabad's authority over Waziristan is perhaps beyond the capability of Gen Musharraf and his army. In the past three years, the army has lost more than 1,000 men. In an attempt to contain the conflict, Islamabad last year sought a ceasefire that raised the hackles of the US, which wants Gen Musharraf to "clean out" al-Qaida and the Taliban.
Violence has escalated further since Pakistani commandos raided the Red Mosque in Islamabad that was occupied by pro-Taliban students in July, resulting in more than 100 dead. Since the raid, hundreds of Pakistani soldiers and civilians have died in suicide bombings. Since August, pro-Taliban militants have been holding captive more than 200 Pakistani soldiers in nearby South Waziristan.
Osama bin Laden, in a video last month, declared war on Gen Musharraf, calling on Pakistanis to rise against their "infidel" leader in retaliation for the storming of the mosque. Bin Laden also branded Pakistani soldiers as apostates. "Pervez, his ministers, his soldiers and those who help him, are all accomplices in the spilling of blood," he said.
Gen Musharraf has upped the stakes, too. After being re-elected president on Saturday by federal and provincial MPs, he pledged to continue the fight "100%" against terrorism.
The west has a strong vested interest in how Gen Musharraf tackles Waziristan and how he deals with an increasingly unstable domestic political situation.
When police in Germany arrested three men - two Germans and a Turk - accused of plotting to attack a US military base in the country, German officials claimed that the trio had travelled to Waziristan for training in explosives. The July 7 London bomber Muhammad Siddique Khan is also thought to have trained in Waziristan.
Western officials are hoping that Gen Musharraf does not mishandle the current fighting in this remote area of Pakistan, or risk Waziristan turning into a training camp for would-be terrorists.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2187850,00.html
