Peace elusive in South Waziristan

Tom Hussain, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: August 22. 2009 9:48PM UAE / August 22. 2009 5:48PM GMT

ISLAMABAD // The reported death of Baitullah Mehsud, the overlord of the Pakistani Taliban, has brought no relief to the inhabitants of South Waziristan tribal area, his erstwhile stamping ground.

Instead, residents said in interviews conducted by telephone, they have found themselves caught in the crossfire between militants and the army.

Since the launch in May of limited operations against militants loyal to Mehsud, army units have occupied the plains areas of South Waziristan.

The army build-up has restrained militant commanders of the Wazir tribe, which farms the plains, from getting involved in the confrontation, but the security measures they have enforced is costing non-combatants dearly, residents said.

Farming is the only means of sustenance in the plains area in Wana. Spring-fed streams in the neighbouring mountains have long since dried up, so farmers have become totally reliant on electrical pumps to tap aquifers about 60 to 70 metres underground to irrigate fields of vegetables and fruit.

However, security measures have included a power blackout that has prevented the pumping of water, damaging crop size and quality, residents said.

Much of the affected harvest has subsequently fallen victim to long delays at the many army checkpoints between Wana town, the administrative headquarters of South Waziristan, and Dera Ismail Khan, the nearest Pakistani city.

Previously a straightforward four-hour drive, the estimated 200 produce-laden lorries that have departed daily over the past month have been made to wait at multiple checkpoints in the harsh summer sunlight, with the barren terrain providing no shaded sanctuary.

The journey now takes at least 12 hours and much of the cargo is rotten by the time it reaches market and thus goes unsold.

“The losses are badly affecting the standard of living of the villagers. The next year will be one of economic hardship for them,” said Ihsan-Ullah, a local health worker.

The army’s presence has become increasingly dangerous for locals as attacks by militants on checkpoints and convoys have increased, residents said.

In particular, the militants’ tactic of detonating one remote-controlled roadside explosive device to attack one convoy and a second to hit reinforcements has prompted the army to adopt an aggressive defensive posture that has resulted in increasing civilian casualties.

“After an attack, the soldiers are under orders to shoot on sight. I was shot in the leg outside the hujra [external reception room] of my home after the army caught militants planting explosives nearby,” said Alam Sher, a Wana resident convalescing in Dera Ismail Khan.

Non-combatant residents have become increasingly bitter about security measures that they see as intimidation tactics; soldiers manning machine-gun posts constantly have road vehicles in their sights.

“During the journey, it felt as if I could have been killed a thousand times,” said Ihsan-Ullah.

In the days leading up to independence day celebrations on August 14, drivers were warned at checkpoints to fly the national flag or face unspecified consequences, residents said.

“It is as if the army wants us ordinary people to hate them. It would have been better if we weren’t citizens of this country,” said Ghulam Mohammed, a student.

Such periodic tensions between tribal inhabitants and the security forces had previously been smoothed over by tribal elders, but the August 13 assassination of Malik Khadin, a widely respected elder and opponent of Mr Mehsud’s, has forced other local keepers of the peace underground.

In an interview before his murder, Khadin had anticipated the threat to his life, following the return to South Waziristan of a militant commander who had been expelled for hosting foreign al Qa’eda militants in 2005 by the tribal militia he had led.

“The situation has changed,” Mr Khadin had said, after learning that envoys of Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban, were negotiating a reconciliation between the exiled militants and Haji Nazir, the dominant commander of Wazir tribe militants, who had supported the tribal militia four years’ earlier.

Residents said that the current tensions in the area mirror the situations in 2004 and 2006, when Nek Mohammed and Abdullah Mehsud, the militant predecessors of Baitullah Mehsud, had emerged as a serious threat to the government.

Both were killed shortly after signing peace agreements with the government – Mr Mohammed in the first drone-launched missile strike conducted on Pakistani territory by the United States.

Residents said that they expected the situation to deteriorate, rather than improve following the reported death of Baitullah Mehsud.

“I have nothing to say about the death of Baitullah Mehsud because we know, from experience, that it will lead to more bloodshed from which will emerge an even more ruthless militant leader,” said Abdul-Rehman Wazir, a farmer.



thussain@thenational.ae