Captured battle plan shows strength and training of Taleban forces

The map tells a war story of its own. Sketched by a Taleban commander, it is of a stretch of territory fought over in Bajaur between the Pakistani Army and the insurgents. The ground has been neatly divided into specific areas of responsibility for different Taleban units.

Weapons caches, assembly areas and rendezvous points have been carefully marked and coded. This is not the work of a renegade gunman resistant to central authority; it is the assessment of a skilled and experienced fighter, and begins to explain how more than 400 Pakistani soldiers have been killed or wounded since August in Bajaur, the tribal district agency that is said to be the haunt of Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Discovered along with the map in a series of recently captured tunnel complexes are other documents - radio frequency lists, guerrilla warfare manuals, students' notes, jihadist propaganda and bombmaking instructions - that provide further evidence of the Taleban's organisation and training. They prove that the Taleban in Bajaur, one of Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata), were planning not only to fight, but also to disseminate their fighting knowledge.

“They were training people here,” Colonel Javed Baluch, whose troops seized the village of Tang Khata in an early stage of the autumn fighting, said, as he thumbed through the captured literature. “This was one of their centres. There were students here taking notes on bombmaking and guerrilla warfare. They were well trained and well organised.”

But training whom and to do what? Despite the documentary evidence in Bajaur, the Taleban's ultimate aims - and the nature of their relationship with al-Qaeda - remain contentious issues.

America and Britain claim that the terrorist network and affiliated organisations are being hosted by the Taleban in the tribal areas, which they use as a base for training camps, refuge and recruitment. This, they say, extends the threat from the tribal agencies to the rest of the world.

“If I were going to pick the next attack to hit the United States, it would come out of Fata,” Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said recently. A Western diplomat in Islamabad claimed last month that among those killed by a Predator drone strike in the tribal area - there have been at least 18 drone attacks there in the past 12 weeks - were members of a terrorist cell planning an attack on Britain.

One eminent Pakistani political figure, speaking on condition of anonymity, claimed that al-Qaeda and the Taleban had set up a joint headquarters in 2004 as an “Islamic emirate” in North Waziristan, headed by Sirajuddin Haqqani, an Afghan Taleban commander. (His father, Jalaluddin Haqqani, a veteran of the fight against the Soviet Union, was funded by the CIA 30 years ago and was once fêted at the White House by Ronald Reagan.)

“Sirajuddin ... connects the Taleban with al-Qaeda and the Pakistani Taleban with the Afghan Taleban,” the source said. “It basically runs the war and has made Fata today the same as Afghanistan was before September 11 - controlled by foreign and local militants who fight a war on both sides of the border.”

Such claims, which have been circulated widely in Pakistan, are denied strongly by the military. Many officers describe the Taleban in Fata as a disparate group of home-grown militants with little vision beyond the affairs of their own district, and claim that al-Qaeda's involvement is negligible.

“There was an al-Qaeda presence here but it didn't include their training bases or headquarters,” Colonel Nauman Saeed, commander of the Frontier Corps garrison in Khar, Bajaur's capital, said. “They [al-Qaeda] were as a pinch of salt in the flour.”

General Tariq Khan, the officer commanding the Bajaur operation, said: “I do not see a coherent stategy in any of these militants. I don't see any Islamic movement of Waziristan or an Islamic emirate ... I think that everyone is in it for himself.”

The Pakistani military claims to have killed more than 1,500 insurgents in Bajaur, and General Khan admits that many foreign fighters - “Uzbeks, Chechens, Turkmen, some Afghans” - have been among them. Of al-Qaeda's top leadership, however, not a trace has been found. “We've hit some Arab leadership there but not of a very high level,” he said.

It could be that the leaders have withdrawn to the two valley strongholds still held by the Taleban in Bajaur, or that they have escaped to Afghanistan or to a neighbouring tribal area.

Or were they ever in Bajaur at all? Shafirullah Khan is the savvy political agent in the area, himself a Pashtun and a long-term veteran of tribal affairs. “At first I would never have believed that al-Zawahiri was here,” he said of the rumours that bin Laden's deputy had been a visitor.

“But now that I have seen those tunnels and hidden shelters, I am not so sure.”

Via the Times.

'US missiles' hit Pakistan village

A suspected US drone has launched a missile strike into northwest Pakistan, reportedly killing at least 10 people.

The attack on Friday targeted a town in North Waziristan, a tribal region on the Afghan border, security officials said.

"It happened close to the border," a Pakistani military officer said.

"We have reports of 10 dead but it will take time to get more information."

The North Waziristan region is a reputed stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda linked fighters.

Other Pakistani officials told the AFP news agency that up to 14 fighters were killed when the missile strike destroyed an al-Qaeda training camp.

Four missiles

Four missiles are thought to have been fired at the camp, in Kum Sham village, some 35km south of Miranshah in North Waziristan.

Security sources said the village is dominated by Wazir tribes and is near the border with South Waziristan, another hub of Taliban and Al-Qaeda operatives.

"Between 11 to 14 militants, mainly foreigners, were killed in the strike," a senior military official said.

It was not immediately clear if there were any high-value targets among those killed, sources said.

An intelligence official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said: "The strike successfully destroyed the camp."

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, speaking from the Pakistani capital Islamabad, said: "At the moment we are being told by sources in the area that the attack took place in the Razmak village [of North Waziristan].

"We are told that up to 17 people were also wounded in this attack.

"Just a few days ago we were in this region. And we were able to observe that even at nighttime the drones have been flying over this area.

"It has also causing considerable anger in that region because the Pakistani military forces have been deployed in very large numbers along this border and every time there is a strike deep into Pakistan it creates more public resentment. Not just against the Americans but also the local forces which are not able to stop these attacks.

"In spite of opposition by the Pakistani government, the Americans have been buzzing the Pakistani tribal territories ... and they have been picking out targets with impunity."

Sovereignity violated

At least 18 such attacks by unmanned US aircraft have occured since September.

However, this is the first since General David Petraeus, the US Central Command chief, took charge of the war in Afghanistan.

[More]


Comment:

I had been hoping that Petraeus would put an immediate end to the strikes, but I guess not. At least no civilians were killed this time.

In map-related news, I have finally found Tehsil-level maps of FATA. They turned out to be hiding in the 1998 Pakistani Census, which UC Berkeley has a copy of. This means that I can at last begin work on the base map.

We gain one, we lose one.

There's a lot to talk about today, so I'm going to depart from my usual format.

According to Al Jazeera:

In a second battle in Helmand province, Afghan and international troops retook the Nad Ali district centre - which had been held by fighters - during a three-day fight, Ahmadi said.

That battle, which also involved airstrikes, ended on Saturday and resulted in the death of 40 Taliban fighters, officials said.

Afghan police and soldiers were now in control of the district centre.

Nato said its aircraft bombed fighters after they were seen gathering for a major attack, killing "multiple enemy forces".

"If the fighters planned a spectacular attack prior to the winter, this was a spectacular failure," Richard Blanchette, an Isaf spokesman, said.

Although I was somewhat disappointed to learn that there had been a district that I had not known was held by the Taliban, this is of course good news, as is the news, also reported in the article, that NATO had repulsed a major attack on Lashkar Gah. However, AJ did not mention this somewhat less cheerful development, which I found out about via Quqnoos:

Taliban claim to have forced NATO-led troops from a remote district

THE NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has withdrawn from a district in the north-eastern province of Nuristan, the international force said.

ISAF said it retreated from its forward operating base in the Kamdish district on Friday following advice from Afghanistan’s Defence Ministry.

But the Taliban claimed that it forced ISAF troops in the district to retreat after engaging them in fierce fighting in the district, one of the country’s most insecure.

The situation in Nuristan has been growing increasingly worrying. According to my current map prototype, the Taliban currently controls three of its eight districts, as well as the Dara-ye Pech District just across the border in Kunar Province, and a fourth district, Bargomatal, was attacked by Tehrik-i-Taliban-i-Pakistan back in July. I still have been unable to determine the outcome of that battle, but am inclined to think that, even if the TTP did manage to take it, which I don't think they did, their forces have since been withdrawn to fight the Pakistani security forces in Bajaur, which would leave the district only nominally in the Taliban's hands, just as so much of the rest of the province is only nominally in the hands of NATO and the central government. I have seen reports that some of the forces currently fighting in Bajaur had previously been fighting in Afghanistan, which lends some credence to this theory.

Nuristan, for those of you who are not familiar with it (i.e. pretty much all of you), is one of the most isolated inhabited regions on the face of the Earth. Its terrain is nearly impassable, and it is so out of the way that Islam didn't reach it until the end of the 19th century. Before then it was known as Kafiristan (land of the unbelievers) and its inhabitants as the Red Kafirs; their cousins, the Black Kafirs, or Kalasha, live on the Pakistani side of the Durand line and still practice their age-old pagan religion. The Nuristanis speak languages that are unusual even for Mianistan; while most languages in the region are either Iranian (e.g. Pashto, Wakhi, Yidgha) or Indo-Aryan (e.g. Khowar, Kalasha, Torwali) (although this "Dardic" sub-group of the Indo-Aryan branch is pretty weird), the Nuristani languages form a group all of their own.

There is, however, yet another major development regarding Afghanistan in the news today. Quqnoos reports:

US wants to reduce dependence on government by arming militias

THE UNITED States plans to arm tribal militias against the Taliban, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said at a NATO summit in Hungary.

As part of a plan to create greater co-operation on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border, the US wants to train tribal militias in an attempt to reduce its dependence on the central government in Kabul.

Parliament members had already suggested arming the tribes, but the idea was not given any currency at the time.

This is a superb idea. Working with the tribes worked in Iraq, is working in Pakistan, and, unlike McCain's bizarre idea to "clear and hold" some of the most impassible terrain on Earth, it would also work in Afghanistan. In case you haven't noticed, I am strongly pro-tribe, not only because of my own tribal identity (Stewart of Bote FTW!), but also simply because it works. Indeed, in regions such as Mianistan I would venture to say that it is the only strategy that will work. My friend Woke at News Hounds has often said that it is impossible for a conventional army to defeat a popular insurgency. Although it is possible to do it if you brutally punish the civilian population, as Genghis Khan did, that's not really an option if you're the good guys, so it's true so far as we are concerned. This means that if you are faced with an insurgency, the only way that you can win is if it stops being popular. The psychopathic, woman-oppressing, elder-beheading Taliban are already helping us out on this one. However, their antisocial ways can be counteracted by the collateral damage we often inflict when we fight them directly. This means that there needs to be a popular insurgency against the unpopular one. We can then support the locals rather than killing them. And in the tribal reality of Mianistan, supporting the locals means supporting the tribes.

Blast hits Pakistan tribal meeting

An explosion at a meeting of tribal elders in northwest Pakistan has killed at least 20 people and wounded 70 others, an official said.

The suspected suicide bombing happened on Friday in the Orakzai district, one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal regions, security officials said.

"We were busy in raising a lashkar [a tribal militia] to evict Taliban from the region when this attack took place," Qeemat Khan Orakzai, a member of the council, told the Reuters news agency.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The members of the Alizai tribe had met in the town of Ghaljo in mountainous Orakzai, which is the only one of the tribal regions that does not border Afghanistan.

'Hideouts' destroyed

A security official said that the attack came a day after tribesmen had targeted two hideouts belonging to pro-Taliban groups operating in the area.

"The tribesmen blew up two hideouts of the militants a day earlier and it is possible this attack was in revenge for their actions," a security official told the AFP news agency on condition of anonymity.

The bombing came a day after four tribal elders in Bajaur, a tribal region north of Orakzai, were abducted and beheaded after attending another pro-government meeting, officials said.

"People will tell you that Pakistan is already in a state of war. Every day there are suicide bombings," Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from the North West Frontier province, said.

"The violence is escalating at a time that the national assembly is not able to come to grips with the situation.

"The death toll could rise further," he said.

Violence has intensified across Pakistan in recent months since the army began an offensive against the pro-Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in the Bajaur and Swat regions.

Orakzai, near the main northwest city of Peshawar, has been relatively peaceful compared to the other tribal regions.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

The stupidity of the Taliban is breathtaking. I am at a loss as to how a Californian suburbanite has a better understanding of tribal politics than a group that's based in a heavily tribal region. When the tribes told the Taliban that they should leave because of the effect that their war with the Pakistani security forces was having on civilians, they should have done so. They should have pulled back to Waziristan, where the Pakistani government still has little inclination to fight them. Then, once the security forces had been withdrawn, they should have begun re-infiltrating the northern districts and agencies. That was their only real option, because the tribes are the reality, and you cannot declare war on reality and win.

Of course, the Taliban should never have let it come to this in the first place. From the very beginning, they should have been trying to bring tribal elders over to their side— through bribery, conversion, or what have you. They should have jockeyed for power within the tribes, perhaps poisoning the odd rival, or having a rival group take him out. When they did take such action towards an elder, it should never have been direct; proxies, or even false flags, should always have been used. They should have formed alliances, exploited old feuds, and arranged strategic marriages to solidify these networks of support. This would have established themselves as a major, if not the major, political power. This was the logical, reasonable thing to do. It's what the Prophet Muḥammad did. If they had done it, the security forces would have been the ones to receive the ultimatum, not them.

But they did not do it, and they did receive the ultimatum, and they are responding to it in the worst conceivable way. Beheading elders? This sends a very clear message, not only to the tribesmen of the elders in question, but also to all of the other tribesmen. If I were a Waziri elder, I would be getting very nervous right about now.

Pakistan tribes attack Taliban

Tribal volunteers in Pakistan have threatened to destroy the house of Maulvi Omar, a senior Pakistani Taliban spokesman, in the north of the country.

The volunteers surrounded Omar's house on Monday and also said that the homes of other Taliban supporters would be targeted.

The threats are part of a crackdown on the Taliban some tribes people are launching in the Bajaur Agency.

The volunteers' commander says they have 20,000 men ready to carry out the campaign and that they are not asking for any government help.

Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad, said that a military operation in Bajaur had made it the scene of heavy fighting and displaced tens of thousands of people from the area.

"[This] caused considerable anger at both the, so called, Taliban in the region for destabilising the region, and the military coming.

"That disillusionment now seems to have turned against the fighters who have been fighting the military."

Hyder said that the locals have been burning the houses of senior commanders who have allied themselves to the Taliban and surrounded the house of Omar.

"There was some desperate attempts by the pro-Taliban elements to try and prevent the destruction of Maulvi Omar's house, but the tribals have said that they will go ahead anyway."

However, Hyder said that Afghan refugees and some Afghan commanders in the area were still attempting to resist the tribal volunteers.

Rocket attack

The attacks came a day after opposition fighters fired rockets at the home of a politician in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, bordering Afghanistan.

Two rockets damaged three homes in the town of Marden on Sunday.

The rockets failed to hit the home of Amir Haider Khan Hoti, the North West Frontier Province's chief minister and the intended target.

No one was injured in the attack. Hoti was said to be in Peshwar, the provincial capital, at the time.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the provincial information minister, said: "We expect more such incidents."

"They are not going to be stopped here. We are facing a war-like situation."

The strike followed a number of attacks targeting politicians in the lawless border area.

A suicide bomber detonated a bomb outside the house of a leading pro-government politician last week, killing four people.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

This is only one example of a number of tribal activities currently underway against the Taliban.

In other news, I have finally found highly detailed maps of the border region, which I am working on integrating into a single very high quality reference map.

Interview with Waziri soldier

Very, very interesting.

Report Says Pakistan Troops Fire on US Helos

Islamabad - Pakistani security forces and armed tribesmen on Monday foiled an attempt by US troops to enter Pakistani territory by firing shots at them, security officials said.

The attacks came as Pakistani forces killed up to 20 Taliban militants in the tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

Two US military helicopters crossed into Pakistan and tried to land near Angor Adda area of South Waziristan tribal district along the Afghan border before dawn, a local security official said.

"But our security forces and the tribesmen who were alert opened fire at them and forced them to flee back to Afghanistan," added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

There were conflicting official versions of the attempted US strike.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman denied the attack on U.S. forces had occurred, saying the Pakistani security official’s statement “didn’t appear to be accurate,” wire reports said.

A senior official in the country's foreign ministry said American ground troops, which were backed by US helicopter gunships, tried to cross over border, but were forced to flee by the tribesmen.

"Pakistani troops did not take part in the action," he said seeking anonymity.

No one was hurt in the incident, which an army spokesman denied took place.

"We completely deny the incident. There was no violation of our border from the Afghan side and therefore there was no question of any firing from our side," Major Murad Khan insisted.

However, he said firing was heard in the area but the army did not know where it had come from and where it was aimed.

A local resident, Sher Ali, said the tribesmen in the Angor Adda area had been on alert since September 3 when US special forces dropped by US helicopters killed more than 20 civilians.

"People had information since Sunday night that the US forces were gathering across the border so thousands of armed tribesmen were guarding their area," he added.

"Good for them (Americans) that they turned back. Otherwise, people were ready to give them the sort of welcome they deserve."

Tension has been brewing between Islamabad and Washington in recent weeks as US forces have increased missile attacks, mostly carried out by drones, at the suspected hideouts of militants who launch cross-border raids on international forces in Afghanistan.

Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen told the US Congress last Wednesday that Washington was planning military operations to eliminate militant sanctuaries in Pakistan.

In response, Pakistan's military chief General Ishfaq Parvez Kayani has vowed to defend the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the country "at all cost."

The US attacks have also fuelled anger among the Pakistani public which is now demanding the new government in Islamabad abandon cooperation with the US in the international fight against terrorism.

But there are no indications that the government, led by the widower of slain Benazir Bhutto, President Asif Ali Zardari, intends to do that. The government has vowed to resolve the issue through diplomacy.

On Tuesday Zardari will meet British Prime Minister Gordon Brown in London to discuss the matter and next week he is expected to see US President George W Bush after he arrives in Washington on an official visit.

Meanwhile, in Bajaur tribal district up to 20 militants died as Pakistani jets, helicopters and artillery pounded positions in Kamangar, Loi Sum and Banda, according to a local security official.

Army spokesman Major Murad said several militant positions were attacked on Monday but the losses had yet to be ascertained.

Via Military.com.

Comment:

At this point, it is extremely difficult to determine what, if anything, happened. In addition to the versions reported above, it has also been claimed that "Pakistani paramilitary soldiers at a checkpoint opened fire into the air and the US troops decided not to continue forward."¹ Sher Ali's claim that the tribesmen had received reports that the US was preparing to launch an attack is almost certainly false, as there isn't anything to speak of on the other side of the border that they could have observed. The BBC version linked to above, which describes the troops as arriving in Chinook helicopters, is more likely to be correct, but even it makes very little sense, as it also says that the Chinooks were accompanied by helicopter gunships, which then just sat there during the actual incursion. The big problem with all of these versions, however, is that they claim that the troops ran away rather than fight. If you're engaging in a military incursion, you're probably ready for some combat.

Pakistani tribesmen organize private armies to fight Taliban

Pakistan's Taliban might be getting stronger, wreaking havoc along the country's border with Afghanistan, but they are also growing wildly unpopular, inciting their own tribesmen to turn against them.

In the latest of a series of incidents, a lashkar, or private army comprised of Pakistani tribesmen, torched the houses of Taliban commanders in Bajaur, near the Afghan border, vowing to fight them until they are expelled, the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reports.

Tribesmen in Bajaur Agency's Salarzai tehsil on Sunday formed a private army (lashkar) of around 30,000 people against the local Taliban. A local jirga decided to form the lashkar in the wake of the increasing presence of the local Taliban in the area. The lashkar torched 14 houses, including the house of a local Taliban commander. Tribal elder Malik Munsib Khan, who heads the lashkar, said tribesmen would continue their struggle until the Taliban were expelled from the area, adding that anyone found sheltering Taliban militants would be fined one million [rupees] and his house would be torched. The tribesmen also torched two important centres of the Taliban in the area and gained control of most of the tehsil.

Dawn, another English-language daily in Pakistan, cited the lashkar at a much lower number.

The tribe has raised a lashkar of more than 4,000 volunteers. Malik Munasib Khan, who is leading uprising against the militants, said that the houses destroyed by the volunteers included one of militant leader Naimatullah, who had occupied several government schools and converted them into seminaries.

The development comes in the midst of the Pakistan Army's bombardment campaign, which has been unfolding for weeks in the tribal agency of Bajaur, a militant stronghold where some top commanders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding. The bombardment, which has left some 400 militants dead according to The New York Times, highlights the rising power of the Taliban some seven years after they were first ousted from power in Afghanistan. But it also showcases why the Taliban are highly unpopular: Some 200,000 people have been displaced because of fighting, while dozens of citizens have been killed in clashes between the militants and military.

The Bajaur lashkar might be the largest of its kind, but it is not the only such force to have turned against the Taliban, according to recent reports. The News, a leading Pakistani daily, reported two weeks ago that several such lashkars have arisen throughout the North West Frontier Province, where the Taliban are increasing their hold.

[More]

Comment:

Khalid Aziz, in a blog post linked to from the main article, strongly suspects that political considerations will force the government to end the current campaign, which

will not only letdown the military but all those who have accepted the challenge to fight the militants at the community level. We have seen that while the government adheres to cease fires the militants do not. Under the excuse of cease fire the militants retaliate against those who risked attacking the militants. The government’s ascendancy that now prevails would be lost.

However, this would violate the number one rule of tribal politics: Never kill the elders. Slaughter babies, rape and pillage, but do not harm the elders. Once you do that, you're in deep trouble. Killing elders is what started the Anbar Awakening, and what prompted the elimination of a very large number of Uzbek militants back when this blog was just beginning. When you target tribal elders, you target the tribe, and when you target the tribe, you target a fundamental component of society, a component that, in this part of the world, is very heavily armed.

I do not know how this will play out. The tribes may be instrumental in the Taliban's defeat; they may play no role at all. However, that defeat will never come unless the tribes allow it.

Taleban set up 'Pakistan courts'

Taleban militants in Pakistan's north-western Mohmand tribal area have set up permanent Islamic courts, they say.

The districts have been divided into four judicial zones, each having two judges and a permanent court address.

The Taleban have up until now used mobile courts - with no permanent offices or judges - to settle criminal and financial disputes.

They say the permanent courts show the diminishing authority of the central and local governments.

The Taleban currently control large areas of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) along the border with Afghanistan.

[More]


Comment:

Strange how Pakistan objects so vehemently to our infringing on their sovereignty, but has no problem when the Taliban does it.

Pakistanis die in sectarian clashes

At least 30 people have been killed and more than 100 wounded in sectarian clashes between Sunni and Shia Muslims in a Pakistani tribal region near the Afghan border, officials say.

Clashes broke out on Friday in Parachinar, the main town in Pakistan's northern Kurram tribal region.

Haneef Jan, head of Kurram tribal agency hospital in Parachinar, said: "Nineteen bodies have been brought from different areas while a woman died of wounds at the hospital.

"More than 100 people are also being treated mainly for bullet wounds, of which some 10 to 12 are critically injured."

Mohammed Nadeem, a local police official, said fighting escalated after clashes began when armed men opened fire on a Sunni mosque.

[More]


Comment:

This is bizarre. I am at a complete loss to explain it.

I doubt that the Shia are the instigators here, it just doesn't make sense. For one thing, they're surrounded by potentially vindicative Sunnis; if a sectarian civil war breaks out here, they will not win. Also, there doesn't seem to have been anything to set them off. The fact that the Pakistani government is currently preoccupied with oppressing its own citizens doesn't explain it, as the Pakistani government never exerted much of a restraining influence here in the first place. I suppose some new preacher railing away at the evil Sunnis might explain it, but no such preacher is ever alluded to. I suppose the Shia could have grown nervous about the agency's Sunni siding with the increasingly problematic Taliban, but that doesn't seem right, either. These actions will serve only to incite the Sunnis, and besides, it doesn't make sense for the Taliban to have designs on the agency, either.

According to the Federally Administered Tribal Area's website,¹ Kurram has a population of 448,310. The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, which is more than four and a half times its size, has a population of 883,873 — larger, but not overwhelmingly so. All of the sources I've seen say that Kurram is "majority Shiite" without providing an actual percentage, so the most specific we can be is to say that the agency contains between 224,156 and 448,309 Shia. If the area were to be taken over by Waziristan, that means that Waziristan would be at least 16.8-33.6% Shia — quite a sizable minority. I just don't see why the Apostasy would want that sort of demographic headache; it makes much more sense for it to expand elsewhere, in friendlier territory (which is exactly what it's been doing in Swat). I suppose it's possible that the Apostates are trying to set up a "Shia menace" in order to try to scare non-aligned Sunnis over to their side, but that's extremely speculative, and seems a bit more trouble than it's worth.

It may well be that a group of Sunnis living in Kurram has become radicalized (e.g. by attending extremist madrassahs elsewhere in the country) and is acting on its own. Until more information comes in, that's the best I can think of.

Pakistan cleric's base under siege

Troops have surrounded a pro-Taliban cleric's hideout in northwest Pakistan, leading to heavy clashes with his supporters, witnesses say.

Supporters of Maulana Fazlullah responded by beheading three paramilitary soldiers and a police officer and displayed their heads in a village near the town of Swat, according to a provincial official.

However, an Al Jazeera cameraman said that pro-Taliban fighters had beheaded 12 soldiers and killed another by shooting him in the head.

The battle broke out on Friday in the Swat valley in North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where Fazlullah has based a campaign to introduce pro-Taliban laws.

Two civilians were killed in the fighting that broke out at the village of Imam Dheri, where Fazlullah has a religious school.

A day earlier, a blast hit a security forces vehicle in Swat, killing about 20 people and wounding another 35, after the arrival of more than 2,000 Pakistani soldiers in the area earlier this week.

[More]


Comment:

This has the potential to become another Red Mosque. In fact, it may even be worse, because Swat is deep in the heart of nowhere, where the Pakistani government does not exert meaningful control. The locals could well view this as an act of aggression.

Curfew lifted in northwest Pakistan

Pakistani forces and fighters have reached a ceasefire in northwest Pakistan where fighting killed some 250 people last week, according to a tribal leader and officials. The Pakistani army lifted a curfew in the region on Tuesday after a tribal council brokered the truce on Monday in the area around Mir Ali near the Afghan border.

Major-General Waheed Arshad, the military spokesman, said the curfew had been lifted to help civilians while authorities were considering a request from the fighters for a ceasefire. Tribal leaders said the situation was returning to normal after talks between elders' council and the fighters.

"There is now peace in the area," said Maulana Faizullah, a tribal leader who was involved in the negotiations. "The Taliban will not attack security forces unless they are attacked." Fighting in North Waziristan, and violence in other parts of northwest Pakistan, has intensified sharply since July when a nine-month pact broke down and commandos stormed a mosque complex in Islamabad supported by fighters from Waziristan.

[More]

Comment:

The Islamic Emirate of Waziristan poses a bit of a problem. Virtually unknown to most Americans, it lies in Pakistan along the Afghan border, and is one of the two regions to have reached stage three of the plan (referenced in previous posts). While it is not technically a state, per se, the central Pakistani government has no real control over it, so it is de facto independent. It appears to have the support of the local populace; the absence of anyone crying for liberation, as well as the huge difficulties that would be involved in removing it, argue strongly for leaving it alone.

Unfortunately, stage three of the plan does not call for a life of peace and solitude. Instead, these Emirates are expected to expand the area of Apostate control by assisting terror groups in neighboring regions, and ultimately invading. Indeed, Waziristan has been crucial for the Taliban's continued existence, providing them with a safe haven beyond the Coalition's reach. Were it not for the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan would be little more than a fading memory.

What, then, to do? Pakistan has been trying to deal with them, but lacks the muscle and support to do so effectively. It is in Musharraf's best interest to establish a lasting cease-fire. We can't come marching in, because a) our military is busy elsewhere and b) Waziristan is technically Pakistani territory, and one of the most sure-fire ways of alienating an ally is bombing them. However, we can't just let them continue to cause problems in Afghanistan. There are no easy answers.

Waziristan Peace Treaty Ends

From the Al Jazeera article Attacks kill troops in Pakistan:

...Also on Sunday, tribal elders in the North Waziristan region called off a 10-month peace deal with the government after accusing authorities of violating the pact...

...The collapse of the North Waziristan peace deal did not appear to be linked to the Lal Masjid assault, but is likely to add to the problems security forces are facing. Under the pact, the authorities agreed to stop operations against the tribes in return for their pledge to not send fighters into Afghanistan or launch attacks on security forces. While US military officials in Afghanistan said the pact had not stopped armed raids into Afghanistan, it did lead to a sharp fall in attacks on Pakistani forces in North Waziristan.

A tribal leadership council said it was abandoning the pact because security forces had launched several attacks on them and the government had deployed more troops in the region. The council said in pamphlets that it would refuse all dialogue and co-operation with authorities after the government had failed to meet a Sunday deadline to abandon 25 new military checkpoints. The Pakistani army has been moving more troops into the tribal areas after Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, said last week he would crush extremists and "root them out from every corner of the country". Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Pakistan, said many analysts feel Musharraf is plotting a dangerous course in the region where the military is at risk of confronting its own people.

Hyder said the president's policies are not going down well and there is a definite risk that attacks in the area will increase.

General Assad Durrani, former head of Pakistani intelligence, told Al Jazeera: "If you look at the pattern of the last five to six years, ever since we joined the so-called 'war on terror', there have been enough warnings from the people of this area to suggest that there would be some reprisal attacks.

"The warning from the president may be now ... but experts had already said many years ago that this was likely to happen."


Comment:

It will be interesting to see what the repercussions of this will be. Unfortunately, I do not now have time for a detailed analysis, but God willing I will add one soon.

'Osama Bin Laden alive and well'

Osama Bin Laden is alive and well and issuing orders to his commmanders, says the new military leader of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Speaking exclusively to Al Jazeera, Mansour Dadullah, whose brother led military operations for the Taliban until his death in May, said he has received a letter of condolence from Bin Laden.

Mansour said: "Sheikh Osama Bin Laden is alive and active. He’s carrying out his duties. "The latest proof that he alive is that he sent me a letter of condolences after the martyrdom of my brother. He advised me to follow my brother’s path."

[More]

Comment

I suspect that the Taliban may be losing contact with Osama bin Laden. It's been well over half a year now since he last issued a videotape. Dadullah 1.0 felt the need to offer that ridiculous lie about Osama being directly involved in planning a random suicide attack. Dadullah 2.0 feels the need to offer us "proof" of OBL's continued relevance, and the fact that he himself thinks of it as proof suggests that even he might harbor some doubts.

So what's the story? Is Osama bin Laden not alive and well? Something tells me this is not the case; that if he died the Taliban's reaction would be different. I suspect that what's happening is that his safe haven amongst the tribes is no longer quite so safe. One of the lessons al-Qaeda has somehow never managed to learn is that if you want the masses to rise up in support of you, it's generally a bad idea to start executing their friends and neighbors. Al-Qaeda learned this the hard way a few months ago when the tribesmen in the vicinity of Kana annihilated an Apostate Uzbek force that had been enjoying their hospitality and assassinating their leaders. I suspect that Osama no longer feels safe in Pashtunistan, and has consequently withdrawn further into hiding. He may even be contemplating leaving the area, though I can't imagine where he would go.

Uzbek fighters killed in Pakistan

More than 50 people have been killed in clashes between local tribesmen and foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

About 1,000 tribesmen launched an offensive in an attempt drive the Uzbek, Chechen and Arab fighters out of their lands in South Waziristan, security officials said.

"Both sides have been using heavy weapons since this morning and tribal fighters captured important Uzbek bunkers. In the clashes, 44 foreigners were killed and seven tribesmen," one security official told AFP news agency.

An intelligence official told Reuters that the tribesmen had captured the fighters' base in a village near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

Thousands of foreign fighters fled to the semi-autonomous tribal lands on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan after US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001.

They were given refuge by a number of Pashtun tribes that straddle the border, but relations between the foreigners and some of the tribesmen broke down last month when fighting erupted after a pro-government tribal leader was killed.

Tribesmen beating war drums for the first time in three years summoned 1,500 volunteers to form an army, known as a lashkar, in Wana on Tuesday.

In tribal tradition the beating of the drum announces a danger or emergency.

The army vowed to force the foreign fighters from the tribal lands and punish any Pakistanis sheltering them.

Government officials say that more than 200 people have been killed, most of them Uzbek fighters, since early last month.

Residents say up to 1,200 Uzbek fighters are in the region, most from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan commanded by Tahir Yuldashev.

Pakistani authorities have reached pacts with tribesmen in several areas near the border in the hope of driving a wedge between them and the foreign fighters.

Fighting in Pakistan's Tribal Area Leaves 160 Dead

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Clashes between Pakistani tribesmen and foreign militants near the Afghan border this week have left up to 160 people dead, including about 130 Uzbek and Chechen fighters, the provincial governor said Friday.

Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, the top government official in Northwest Frontier Province, said between 25 and 30 tribesmen also had died in fighting that started Monday in the South Waziristan tribal region and was continuing Friday.

The government says the bloodletting shows the success of its decision to use local tribesmen to root out foreign militants linked to Al Qaeda. However, experts say it also exposes authorities' lack of control of a region also used by the Taliban to support attacks in Afghanistan.

Aurakzai, a retired Pakistani army general, said tribal militants had captured another 63 foreigners and were hunting 200 more who had scattered into the area's mountains.

"Our forces are not involved. Local tribesmen are not allowing foreigners to live in their areas," he told reporters at his British colonial-era residence in the regional capital, Peshawar.

The death toll from the fighting in several towns in South Waziristan has risen rapidly, and had stood at about 135 on Thursday. Officials say the two sides have observed brief truces to allow for the burial of dead, but that attempts by local militant leaders to broker an agreement to halt the fighting had failed.

Hundreds of Central Asian and Arab militants linked to Al Qaeda fled to this semiautonomous region after the collapse of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and forged alliances with local tribes. Other Uzbek Islamists opposed to the regime of President Islam Karimov in their homeland have reportedly since joined them from Uzbekistan.

Aurakzai said that Tahir Yuldash, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, a militant opposition group, was in the area when fighting started but would not say what had happened to him.

As part of its support of the U.S.-led war on terror, Pakistan launched military operations in 2004 to wipe the foreign militants out. They succeeded in busting camps used by Al Qaeda but suffered hundreds of casualties and failed to expel the foreign fighters.

The military said at the time that Yuldash, one of Uzbekistan's most wanted men, was wounded but escaped during a raid on a suspected Al Qaeda camp near Wana, South Waziristan's main town.

More recently, Pakistan has cut deals with pro-Taliban militants and urged local tribal elders to police the region themselves.

That has sparked concern that Taliban and other militants now have freer rein to launch crossborder attacks into Afghanistan on U.S. and NATO forces. American officials are also worried it has allowed Al Qaeda to regroup.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that the fighting between tribal groups and foreign fighters could help defeat extremists.

Some analysts, however, say militants with links to Taliban and Al Qaeda are involved on both sides of the current conflict, which also pits local tribes against each other, and that blood feuds could deepen insecurity in a region viewed as a possible hiding place for Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.

Comment
This is very interesting. It looks like al Qaeda may be starting to run out of places to hide. Something similar is happening in 'Iraq, where two tribes recently joined a Sunni tribal alliance dedicated to evicting al Qaeda.

Via FOX News.

Uzbek fighters killed in Waziristan

Up to 30 people have been killed in fighting over the past two days on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, officials said on Tuesday.

The clashes, which started on Monday are said to be between foreign fighters, mostly Uzbeks, and the area's Pashtun tribesmen.

The conflict started near the town of Wana in south Waziristan.

"The number of casualties is rising and we have reports of 25 to 30 dead," Major-General Waheed Arshad, a Pakistan military spokesman, said.

Fighting had previously broken out between the two groups on March 6.

The conflict came after the government tried to convince tribal elders to keep order and stop militant raids into Afghanistan.

The tribesmen had been known for their tradition of providing sanctuary to those fighting against US-led forces in Afghanistan.

Government security forces were not involved, Arshad said.

Amid the fighting, three children were reportedly killed and about 20 more wounded when a stray mortar hit their school bus.

Tribal refuge

Hundreds of foreign fighters, including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs, fled to the semi-autonomous tribal lands on the Pakistani side of the border after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in Afghanistan in 2001.

Most of the tribesmen, who inhabit both sides of the Pakistani-Afghan border, have given refuge to the men despite government efforts to remove them.

The fighting this month indicates that, in at least one area, relations have broken down.

Arshad said: "It's a success of the government strategy ... the tribesmen are fed up with them because they and their activities adversely affect their lives and business."

An intelligence official in Wana said the Uzbek fighters had cut off a road to the west of the town and security forces would take action to clear it if they did not withdraw in 24 hours.

Seventeen people, most of them Uzbeks, were killed in the March 6 battle that broke out after the men tried to kill a pro-government tribal leader.

The cause of the latest fighting was not clear, but the tribal leader and his men had been demanding that the foreign militants lay down their arms, a security official in the area said.

The militants have killed many people across the region over the past few years, including pro-government tribal leaders and people they accuse of spying for US forces in Afghanistan.

Via al Jazeera.