March 21 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. and Pakistan must step up their fight against militants if they want to defeat terrorism and secure peace, tribal leaders from the central Asian country said yesterday.
“The elders of all the major tribes express reservations on the recent policy adopted by Pakistan and America to eliminate terrorism,” the leaders representing the 20 largest tribes in the North West Frontier Province and the Federally Administered Tribal Area said in a resolution adopted at the end of their biggest meeting since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001. “The policy of talking to one terrorist group and fighting some others, while leaving many, will not succeed in the elimination of terrorism.”
Pakistan and the U.S. should change the thrust of their anti-Taliban campaign, broadening the fight “to defeat terrorism completely,” they said. Pakistan should wage war against militants in the same way that Sri Lanka pursued a total victory against the Tamil Tigers last year, Associated Press quoted tribal leader Syed Alam Khan Mehsud as saying.
Tribal support is crucial to efforts by Pakistan’s army to prevent insurgents from regrouping after an offensive in the region, focused on Swat Valley and South Waziristan, against groups blamed for 80 percent of nationwide terror attacks. Elders failed to stop the rise of militancy after the Taliban fled Afghanistan and thousands of tribesmen joined their ranks, killing scores of pro-government leaders.
Jirga Tradition
Meetings of tribal elders, or Jirgas, are the traditional way of solving disputes among the ethnic Pashtun tribes of Afghanistan and northern Pakistan. The men typically sit in a circle on the ground and the meeting ends with a prayer by the most senior tribal elder. The government wasn’t represented at yesterday’s gathering.
The “struggle for peace through jirgas is good, but this time, military operations are the only solution for ending militancy and terrorism,” Basheer Bilour, a senior provincial minister in the NWFP said before the meeting. “The army has spent just one year in Swat Valley and South Waziristan. It will take a long time to defeat the terrorists.”
In January, Pakistan’s government agreed to transfer responsibility for maintaining order in the longtime Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan to local leaders. More than 500 elders from the dominant Mehsud tribe endorsed the government proposal at a jirga.
“We plan to reach a consensus and form a panel of 40 tribal elders from all the various parts of the region,” Mehsud, leader of the Amn Tehrik, or Peace Movement, which organized the gathering, said before the meeting. “They will then be responsible for mobilizing people against the militants.”
Collective Responsibility
Under the 1901 Frontier Crimes Regulation, which governs the seven districts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, tribes are collectively responsible for any criminal acts in territory under their control.
Pakistan is pushing for cooperation from the tribes to help quell violence that has claimed more than 900 lives in nationwide suicide bombings and gun battles since 28,000 troops launched an offensive in South Waziristan in October. At least 3,000 tribal leaders have been killed by the Taliban since 2004, according to Peshawar-based Amn Tehrik.
The Taliban’s capability to wage nationwide terror strikes from South Waziristan has been minimized, Army spokesman Athar Abbas said in a Feb. 23 interview. The military drove Taliban militants from the Swat Valley in a 10-week campaign that started in May.
--Editors: Naween A. Mangi, Ben Richardson.
To contact the reporter on this story: Anwar Shakir in Peshawar, Pakistan at ashakir@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephen Foxwell at sfoxwell@bloomberg.net.
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