Taliban, being crushed by the Pakistan Army, tribal lashkars, and the USA drone attacks: Attacking the jirgas is a sign of weakness in the Taliban

Bajaur: attacking the jirgas

The Salarzai tribe that had begun to oppose the Taliban in Bajaur has been attacked near the town of Khar, the headquarters of Bajaur tribal agency. Their jirga was attacked by a suicide bomber who rushed into the gathering of elders and exploded himself on Wednesday. In all 22 elders were killed, including the leaders and commanders of the lashkar (militia) that they had put together to fight and expel the Taliban and their affiliated “foreigners” from the area. Forty-five members of the 300-strong council of elders were wounded.

An organisation of obscure origin has claimed the deed. This is a pattern and tells us how the Taliban and their patron Al Qaeda have come under pressure lately from the jirgas and reacted. In March, they had to massacre a jirga in Darra Adam Khel and last month they repeated the deed on a jirga in Orakzai agency, killing over a hundred elders. This is stage two of the strategy employed by the terrorists. They began by killing the maliks and single individuals of influence in the Tribal Areas to replace the traditional system of self-governance. Stage two is now upon us and is more problematic.

The jirga remains the apex of the system of authority among the tribes. When the maliks were being killed, the jirgas remained silent, linking the killings to “injustice” in Afghanistan. But as the Taliban began to impose their rule over them with punishments serving as instruments of fear, public reaction to them began to change. The problem was that the state at that time was not around to reassure them that they would be supported if they defied the terrorist regime. But now in Bajaur, for the first time, the Taliban and their “foreigners” are getting hurt in their confrontation with the Pakistan army, as is apparent from the suing for peace by Baitullah Mehsud, their “caliph” in South Waziristan. So now the tribes and jirgas are beginning to reassert themselves.

The Salarzai showed patience when their economy was being demolished and their schools were being pulled down by the Taliban. But after the army began operations in Bajaur, the Salarzai began to express their true response to the Taliban, something that has not happened elsewhere in the Tribal Areas, either because the military operations there have been fitful or have not succeeded. Therefore the attack on the Salarzai jirga clearly shows a new trend in the adventure story of the Taliban-Al Qaeda combine: they are becoming unpopular among the tribesmen and trying to cow them down by attacking their jirgas.

But the jirga killings are simply going to damage the Taliban’s cause further. Nowhere was the popular reaction against the “foreign” terrorists more intense than in the Malakand division (Swat, Dir, etc). But the people there were “softened” in favour of the Taliban by the MMA government in Peshawar which ruled in the area, just as it did not encourage the people of FATA to rise against the terrorists. Thus when the elections rolled around, the Swatis clearly indicted the MMA government for not looking after them. They also began to condemn the government when the military operations inflicted a lot of damage on them without eliminating the terrorists. So the fear factor came in and their message was: leave us to the mercies of the Taliban.

Fortunately, things changed after the exit of President Pervez Musharraf from the scene and his policy of mollifying the MMA because it helped him stay in power through the 17th Amendment. With the PPP in power in Islamabad and an apolitical army chief in the person of General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani heading the army, the scene has changed for the better and the pressure on the Taliban has started to build up. This must be kept up and, more importantly, other tribal agencies should be brought under military operations.

South Waziristan, where the last military operation in May this year discovered the “suicide academy” where suicide-bombers were trained for the whole of Pakistan, is back in the hands of Baitullah Mehsud whose second marriage was celebrated by subservient tribesmen on the occasion of last Eid to show that he was still the “caliph”.

Kurram Agency is also a place gradually going out of the territorial jurisdiction of Pakistan. Since Peshawar failed to re-establish the traffic on the road going to Parachinar, the agency’s economy has become connected to Afghanistan. If you want to send food and medicines to Parachinar, you have to first smuggle them to Afghanistan. Since the Pakistani state could not come to the help of the besieged tribes there, their co-tribals from Afghanistan are coming in to defend them. This is not a situation which Islamabad can take for very long.

Attacking the jirgas is a sign of weakness in the Taliban “movement”. More and more tribesmen are going to turn against them as their elders are exterminated. More citizens’ militias will be formed against the Taliban; but the terrorists will be rolled back only if the Pakistan army goes in and helps its own people to defend themselves. This is the war that Pakistan has to fight, and from it hangs the prospect of what will happen in the region in the coming weeks and months. (Daily Times)
Read more...

Jirga to nowhere

Saturday, November 01, 2008
Rahimullah Yusufzai

It was obvious from the beginning that the Pak-Afghan Joint Peace Jirga, which held its inaugural session with much fanfare in August 2007 in Kabul and its much-delayed sequel recently in Islamabad on October 27-28, stood little chance of resolving the long-standing conflicts in our region. Still the decision to hold the gathering had to be taken because US President George W Bush had backed the idea mooted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistan's refusal to attend would have exposed it to criticism for not going along with a proposal that could contribute toward building up their alliance against Islamic militants operating on both sides of the Durand Line border.

As it turned out, Pakistan wasn't convinced of the efficacy of the idea. This was the reason, apart from other causes including the political upheaval in Pakistan following President General Pervez Musharraf's arbitrary decision to sack Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry in March 2007, for Islamabad to drag its feet on hosting the second round of the peace jirga. Musharraf, as we all know, reluctantly flew to the Afghan capital to participate in the closing session of the Kabul jirga after receiving a phone call from US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. It was another occasion for our then president to provide evidence that he took major decisions following phone calls from the high-ups in Washington. His presence at the jirga in Kabul no doubt made the event high-profile and important but using it as a forum to tackle militancy or opening peace talks with militants required conviction and a lot more than issuing high-sounding declarations and insincerely professing friendship to each other. The distrust that characterizes relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan wasn't going to be overcome in a few joint sessions of speech-making and point-scoring.

Both the Kabul jirga, where about 700 Afghan and Pakistani politicians, lawmakers, tribal elders, government officials and members of the intelligentsia were in attendance, and the Islamabad mini-jirga or jirgagai as it was referred to in Pashto language, offered conditional peace talks to the armed opposition groups active in both countries. In August 2007 when the Kabul jirga was held, the security situation in Pakistan wasn't that bad and, therefore, an offer of peace talks was made to the Afghan opposition groups only. Without naming the Taliban, the opponents of the Afghan government were invited to peace talks provided they gave up fighting and accepted Afghanistan's new constitution, which guaranteed democratic system of government, independent judiciary and media and women's rights. The Islamabad mini-jirga renewed that offer but this time the armed opposition groups in both Afghanistan and Pakistan were invited to peace talks. Despite sustained military operations against the militants, the security situation in Pakistan has deteriorated to such an extent that it is now being equated with Afghanistan, which has been at war since the Moscow-backed communist revolution in April 1978 and has been invaded during this period by two superpowers, the USSR and the US.

In a way, the Afghan government through its jirga politics has prevailed upon Islamabad to accept its point of view on two counts. One, it successfully argued that the militancy and violence in Afghanistan had links in Pakistan, particularly in the country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), and the challenge had to be tackled jointly. Two, it insisted and got Pakistan to accept the need for letting the 10-member committee comprising five Afghans and five Pakistanis to also hold peace talks with Pakistani militants. The decision to form the committee was taken at the Islamabad mini-jirga but the names of members would be kept secret for security reasons. Though this process appears impracticable, the fact that both governments agreed to allow Afghan jirga members to talk to Pakistani militants and Pakistanis on the peace committee to Afghan armed groups is significant. This was an acceptance of the reality that the conflict in Afghanistan and Pakistan transcended the Durand Line and needed to be tackled through joint efforts based on a holistic approach.

However, there are practical difficulties in putting into practice whatever was agreed at the Islamabad mini-jirga. It would not be easy finding the ten individuals from among the 50 Afghans and Pakistanis who attended the Islamabad event to undertake the task of establishing contacts with the armed opposition groups in the two countries and prevailing upon them to accept the conditional offer of peace and reconciliation talks. It has been suggested that the search for prominent individuals enjoying the trust of both the militants' groups and the two governments shouldn't be confined to the members of the jirga. Such a search has become even more difficult due to the refusal of certain Pakistani jirga members, including the pro-Taliban JUI-F leaders Maulana Fazlur Rahman and Maulana Mohammad Khan Sherani, to stay away from both the Kabul and the Islamabad peace jirgas.

The Pakistani delegation at the Islamabad jirgagai was packed with ruling politicians and government functionaries, not to mention pro-establishment tribal elders. Sindh and Punjab were given token representation and it was understandable that most of the Pakistani delegates were Pashtuns and belonged to the NWFP and FATA, the militancy-hit hot-spots in Pakistan. Due to political changes resulting from the February 18 general elections, Islamabad dumped its former jirga chairman Aftab Sherpao, who as the federal interior minister led the Pakistani delegation to the Kabul peace jirga in August 2007, and replaced him with the governor of NWFP, Owais Ahmad Ghani. Politics was clearly the motivating factor in selecting the Pakistan delegation instead of picking delegates having experience and influence in the areas suffering from violence. Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party head Mahmood Khan Achakzai and his deputy Abdur Rahim Mandokhel weren't invited but his party still had some representation at the Islamabad mini-jirga. The ANP was also represented, though its leader Asfandyar Wali Khan who left the country after surviving a suicide bombing in his village in Charsadda didn't attend.

The Afghan delegation too had nobody who could speak for the opposition groups. All delegates were selected by the government and most of them were members of parliament and representatives of Afghanistan's different ethnic groups. Unlike Pakistan, the Afghans kept faith in their jirga chairman, former foreign minister Dr Abdullah, even though he currently doesn't hold any government position.

As expected, the Mulla Omar-led Afghan Taliban rejected the jirga's conditional offer of talks and so did former Afghan mujahideen leader Gulbaddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami. The two had also turned the offer made by the Kabul jirga in 2007. Taliban termed the jirgas a creation of the US and challenged their representative character. They pointed out that there was no representation for Taliban and other opposition figures in the jirgas and those attending were largely pro-US politicians. Taliban reiterated their demand for withdrawal of the US-led foreign forces from Afghanistan before they could consider talks with the Afghan government. That talks with the Afghan government too were unlikely was made obvious when Taliban described President Karzai as a puppet of the US. The only difference between Taliban and Hekmatyar's stance was that the latter wanted a timetable of withdrawal of all foreign forces before entering into peace talks with other parties to the conflict. This is only a technical hitch because there is a strong belief, and rightly so, among Taliban and Hekmatyar fighters that the Karzai regime may not last long after the pullout of US-led coalition forces.

As every party to the conflict has put forth conditions before holding any kind of peace and reconciliation talks, the Pak-Afghan jirga's offer of negotiations to the militants is a non-starter. Taliban aren't going to lay down arms as demanded by the Afghan and Pakistan governments. The US and its allies would not pullout troops from Afghanistan as demanded by Taliban. In fact, the US has neatly divided Taliban into 'reconcilable' and 'irreconcilable' factions and is willing to do business with the reconcilable elements among them. Taliban see it as plot to create divisions in their ranks through tempting offers of money and positions in the government.

On the other hand, the regular statements by western politicians and military commanders that the war in Afghanistan was unwinnable is already whetting Taliban appetite and contributing to hardening of their stance. Smelling victory, Taliban would become more demanding while bargaining with their opponents.

Besides, the Pak-Afghan jirga process is one of the many peace initiatives that are presently being pursued. It would be better to pool resources and focus on just one such process that is credible and has better chances of success. There has been much talk about the peace initiative by Saudi Arabia even though it hasn't even taken off. The Saudis have made it clear they would launch such a move once all parties to the conflict, particularly the Afghan combatants, agree to let them make an effort. The difficult part would be to bring Taliban on board and convince them to part ways with Al Qaeda. They would not agree to this proposition easily after having sacrificed everything, even their government and lives, for protecting their Saudi guest, Osama bin Laden. (The News)

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com
Read more...

Almost one million people of Parachinar remain stranded for more than a year by the criminals of Taliban, Sipah-e-Sahaba & Al-Qaeda, sponsored by ISI

Appeal for help to the international community

PESHAWAR: Delay in reopening road delays return of peace to Kurram

By Zulfiqar Ali

PESHAWAR, Oct 23: Delay in reopening of Thall-Parachinar Road despite an agreement, reached between the warring tribes of Kurram tribal region in Murree on Oct 16, is likely to shatter people’s confidence.

Under the peace agreement, signed by the rival parties, a 30-member jirga had to proceed to Parachinar on Wednesday last by road to end yearlong blockade of the area bordering Afghanistan.

Former federal minister Malik Waris Khan Afridi, who is leading the jirga, told Dawn that plan had been revised and mediators comprising notables and former parliamentarians from Fata and Hangu district along with 34 local elders were likely to go to Parachinar on Saturday.

“Both parties want lasting peace and have agreed to reopen the main road and resolve the disputes. Now this is the government’s responsibility to facilitate the process for the jirga to proceed to the area by road in order to rebuild confidence of the local people,” he maintained.

He said that further delay in reopening of the main road might shatter peace process, adding that according to the agreement negligence on the part of the local administration or any other government agency might be considered a deliberate move to sabotage the peace process.

“If administration takes jirga members to Parachinar by helicopters then it will not serve the purpose and will spoil all the efforts,” he said and urged that the government should rein in trouble makers to save the peace process.

Upper parts of Kurram had remained cut off from the rest of the country since November 6 last when fierce clashes broke out in the region.

The blockade had badly affected socio-economic activities in the region which forced local people to travel to Peshawar via Afghanistan.

The political administration had made an abortive attempt to open the road in June last for transporting food to Parachinar but the convoy was attacked near Sadda in Lower Kurram.

Sajjid Hussain, an MNA from the area, said that around 1,600 people had been killed and more then 3,000 wounded in fighting, causing large scale displacement and destruction. He said that Fata Secretariat in coordination with the Federal Interior Ministry was working out a plan for road safety.

Sources said that one of the reasons for delaying visit of jirga was immediate transfer of political agent Mohammad Azam Khan, who was posted as managing director of Sarhad Tourism Corporation.

Officials said that as the political agent was transferred after he was promoted to grade 20. Only grade 19 officer can be posted as political agent of Kurram.

“Transfer of Azam Khan at this very moment was not a wise decision on the part of the government.

His transfer conveys a clear message that government is not sincere in restoration of peace in Kurram,” said a jirga member from Parachinar. He said that Azam Khan should stay in Parachinar once joint jirga reached by road to start dialogue.

Sources said that normalcy was fast returning to Kurram valley and rival groups had voluntarily vacated trenches in sensitive areas and stopped plundering and destroying each other properties.

In Parachinar town, the administrative headquarters, local elders have voluntarily placed complete ban on display of weapons. Peace committees have been set up to check the movement of miscreants. (Dawn)

Please consider signing this petition.

SOS from Pakistan - Save Pakistani Shias Petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/ShiaSOS/petition.html



Read more...

The mouth-piece of Taliban, the notorious patron of rogue elements in ISI, General Aslam Beg

In his op-ed in Daily Nawaiwaqt, the mouth-piece of the Taliban, the notorious patron of rogue elements in ISI, General (retired or retarded?) Mirza Aslam Beg suggests that the Taliban attacked the Islamabad Marriott Hotel because the hotel was being used as the control headquarters of CIA. Will General Beg answer if there was a CIA headquarter in the Orakzai Jirga which was attacked by a suicide bomber killing more than 110 innocent Pakistanis; was there a CIA headquarter in Bhakkar where dozens of innocent Pakistanis lost their lives in a terrorist attack by a Taliban/Sipah Sahaba suicide bomber. Clearly, General Beg is playing to the gallery by misguiding and confusing the minds and opinions of ordinary Pakistanis.




Read more...

Crackdown on militants by tribal volunteers in Tribal Areas

By Anwarullah Khan

KHAR, Oct 5: Hundreds of tribal volunteers marched in Mamond and Wara tehsils, strongholds of militants in Bajaur Agency, on Sunday and warned pro-Taliban elements to either surrender or leave the area.

The armed tribesmen did not encounter any resistance.

Elders leading the lashkar visited mosques and hujras in villages and urged tribesmen to rise up against militants.

Malik Sultan Zeb, who is commanding the lashkar, said that his 20,000 volunteers would launch a crackdown on militants from Monday.

He said they would destroy houses of Taliban ‘commanders’, including the residence of Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Maulvi Omar.

“People are fed up. They will not spare anyone who is in league with them,” said Malik Zeb, adding that his people were determined to go after the militants and needed no government help. He also said that the Taliban ‘commanders’ and their supporters had vanished from the area.

“The Taliban fighters and commanders are of humble backgrounds and not in a position to challenge the lashkar. They will be eliminated in a few days,” he remarked.

Security forces delayed action in Mamond at the request of the elders, who sought to defer action for three days and promised to raise a lashkar to crackdown against the militants.

In other areas of Bajuar, security forces backed by helicopters and artillery shelled some places and claimed killing seven militants.

Troops also opened the road between Khar and Inayet Killey which has remained closed since Aug 6. The agency’s main town of Khar and its adjacent areas remained peaceful and the situation is returning to normal.

Also on Sunday, seven people were wounded in an explosion in the Pasht area in Salarzai.

The explosion took place immediately after a meeting held at the residence of former MNA Shahabuddin Khan. According to local people, explosives was left on the kerb of a road and detonated with a remote control.

Meanwhile, Afghan nationals continued to leave for Afghanistan via the Ghakhi checkpost.

Sources said that the administration was likely to extend the three-day deadline, which expired on Sunday, by two or three days.

The authorities have set up a registration centre at Ghakhi Ser to monitor their movement.

It is learnt that influential refugee leaders were planning to shift to Peshawar and Dir districts.

An official said that about 90 Afghan families had registered themselves and moved to adjacent districts via Toorghundai checkpost.

APP adds: Tribesmen in Charmang will also launch a crackdown on militants in Nawagai tehsil.

Assistant Political Agent Jamil Khan said that the Mamond laskhar had burnt down houses of militant leaders named Rehmatullah Khan and Syed Bacha.

Members of the Charmang jirga have vowed to take action against people sheltering militants and said that their houses would be set on fire.

Meanwhile, security forces attacked militant hideouts in Rasakari and Tang Khata areas between late Saturday night and early Sunday. (Dawn)
Read more...

Local action against Taliban: ‘Outsiders’ banned in Orakzai

* Jirga decides to shoot locals harbouring ‘outsiders’, bans bearing of arms, men hiding faces, forms lashkar against Taliban

LAHORE/KHAR: A tribal jirga in Orakzai Agency has decided that ‘outsiders’ will not be allowed to enter the area, and anyone found providing shelter to ‘outsiders’ will be shot dead and his house set on fire, Express News reported on Sunday.

According to the channel, the Ali Khel jirga has also banned the ‘brandishing of arms’. It also instructed men to stop hiding their faces behind large cloths. The jirga also constituted a committee to destroy the Taliban training camp in the area, the channel said, adding that the Ali Khel and Feroze Khel tribes had formed a tribal lashkar to combat Taliban.

Taliban had started leaving the area. The local Taliban said they were leaving the area so that peace could be maintained and it should not be taken as their weakness, the channel added.

It said 14 Taliban, including local commander Abdusalam Ali Khel, had been released from Dabori area of Orakzai. Taliban had vacated a high school building and the Tali Fort in Ali Khel, while also clearing the road to Chapri Feroze Khel.

Meanwhile, thousands of tribal elders and ulema belonging to the Mandal, Charmang and Mamond tribes in Bajaur Agency announced their full support to the government in restoring peace in the area. The tribes made the announcement during grand jirgas held in their respective areas on Sunday. The jirgas also decided to form local lashkars to combat Taliban.

Meanwhile, only 15, 000 of an estimated 80,000 Afghans had left Bajaur despite a three-day ultimatum expiring Sunday, AP reported. daily times monitor/staff report
Read more...

Talking to Mullah Umar and Hekmatyar?

The NWFP Governor, Mr Owais Ghani, has asked the United States “to talk to Mullah Omar, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and Jalaluddin Haqqani, to negotiate peace in Afghanistan”. His contention is that “political stability will only come to Afghanistan when all political power groups, irrespective of the length of their beard, are given their just and due share in the political dispensation in Afghanistan”. He wants the US to know that “all three militant commanders are in Afghanistan”. He also says, though with less credibility, that “Pakistan has no favourites in Afghanistan”.

Alas, Governor Ghani’s assertion that the three warrior chiefs are in Afghanistan has already been challenged by independent observers of the Afghan scene. No matter. It is good that he has come out in the open and claimed a Pakistani strategic stake in Afghanistan. The US should listen to what he is saying. There is a strong message in his statement. If the US can give India a strategic stake in building up the Northern Alliance Tajiks and Uzbeks in Afghanistan, there is no reason why it can’t do the same for Pakistan and the Pashtuns. It may be recalled that Mullah Umar and the US did not have any problems during the Taliban regime in Kabul in 1997-99 until Osama Bin Laden stepped in and drove a wedge between them by bombing New York. Indeed, the Taliban regime and the US were discussing oil pipelines from Central Asia to Pakistan through Afghanistan at the time. The best way to crush Al Qaeda is to drive a wedge between it and the Afghan Taliban by inviting the latter to sit at the table in Kabul and negotiate a power sharing arrangement with the key stakeholders of Afghanistan. Pakistan can and should play a facilitating role. (Daily Times)
Read more...