Fear belies Pakistan boasts of becalmed borderlands

[sonicboom]

Fear belies Pakistan boasts of becalmed borderlands

Friday, 09 Jul, 2010

SADDA: The road from Parachinar to Thal in Pakistan's tribal borderlands, just a few kilometres from Afghanistan, used to be sliced by warring Sunni and Shi'ite militias and then blocked by various Taliban groups.

Today, the Pakistan army says, it is open and free. Pink flowers bloom on roadsides where homemade bombs were once planted.

Field hands work the rich rice fields and the market, surrounding a square once used by the Taliban for executions, is bustling. All appears well in Kurram agency.

At least that's how the army wants journalists to see it.

On a media trip to Kurram sponsored by the Pakistani military, army commanders presented an area racked by sectarian violence and infiltrated by Afghan and Pakistani Taliban as pacified.

Commanders on the ground said that between 3,000 and 4,000 militants had been driven out and would never return.

“I am 200 percent sure we cleared the militants,” said Col. Tausif Akhtar, commander of the troops in Kurram.

In a briefing, Akhtar said 96 militants had been killed and more than 100 captured. Eighteen Pakistani Army troops were killed and 46 wounded, he said.

“They have either been killed or left the area,” he said.

But, he added, there are “small pockets” of militants remaining. “They are not that important.”

He estimated the remaining militants number no more than two dozen.

Mansur Khan Mahsud, research coordinator for the FATA Research Center in Islamabad, said that was doubtful.

“They have not been driven out,” he said, agreeing with the army's estimate of the number of militants in the region.

“The military claims some areas, but the Taliban are still in control in many areas in central Kurram.”


AERIAL BOMBARDMENT

The Pakistani military in October last year launched an assault on South Waziristan, then the stronghold of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan.

Militants led by Hakimullah Mehsud, who got his start as a militant commanding Kurram's Taliban, scattered via Kurram to other areas.

At the same time, the Pakistani military stepped up its aerial and bombardment campaign against Kurram militants, moved to defuse Sunni-Shi'ite tensions and clear and hold areas that had been beyond control of even the British Raj.

They even opened up the 84-km stretch of road between Parachinar in Upper Kurram and Thal in Hangu District in neighbouring Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

But the signs of continuing insecurity are numerous, indicating that militancy in Kurram is more tenacious than expected, and militants are either returning or never left in the first place:

* A convoy of journalists was accompanied by three truckloads of heavily armed Pakistani soldiers to each location;
* Soldiers said it's not safe to linger for more than a few moments in the bustling market;
* Civilians at a food distribution centre lining up for flour and medicine stared suspiciously at outsiders until an army commander led them in patriotic chants.

At least 25 militants have been killed in clashes with security forces since June 1. More recently at least 10 militants were killed in a clash between rival militant factions in central Kurram on July 1.

More ominously, Taliban militants executed a man, Liaq Khan, on July 2 on charges of being a spy for the Americans.

“If the agency has been cleared, how can they fight there, kidnap people and kill them on charges of spying for the Americans?” Mahsud said.


“THEY WILL NOT LET ME SAY ANYTHING”

Kurram civilians also complain, “We cannot travel on the road without an escort from the Kurram Militia, because there are many dangers on the road,”said Haji Kamal Hussain, president of the Parachinar Traders' Welfare Union.

The Kurram Militia is part of paramilitary Frontier Corps force and largely made up of local people.

All this makes the military watchful and even a bit jumpy.

Soldiers conspicuously eavesdropped on the comments of a local columnist as he chose each of his words carefully, an overt display of control usually more subtle in other parts of Pakistan.

“They will not let me say anything,” said Azmat Ali Khan, a local journalist, referring to the nearby soldiers.


Kurram Agency is no stranger to strife.

This spit of Pakistani tribal territory that juts into Afghanistan was the initial haven for Afghan Taliban and al Qaeda fighters, including, allegedly, Osama bin Laden.

They were fleeing the 2001 battle of Tora Bora, itself just visible over the ridge of mountains at a military base in upper Kurram.

It has also been racked by sectarian violence between Sunni and Shi'ite tribes, the only part of Pakistan's border region that is majority Shi'ite.

The Taliban and al Qaeda's virulent anti-Shi'ite ideology has meant years of bloody fighting, sometimes with the Pakistan army caught in the middle.

Today, its roads provide easy access to other tribal areas such as Orakzai, Khyber and North and South Waziristan, all of which have been havens and staging grounds for Taliban militants on both sides of the border.

Thanks to its rugged terrain and strategic location, it is a crossroads for militants moving between Pakistan's tribal badlands and Afghanistan's Pashtun heartland.

Khan, the journalist, said the Taliban still controlled large parts of Kurram.

"The Taliban were supported in the past yet right now, some people are still supporting them," he said.

But the surest sign of a remaining militant presence was the look of fear on people's faces.

"There are many things to say, but we are unable to say because we are bound here," said Khan. "The local people are fighting for their survival." - REUTERS

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