News of Waziristan
Times of London, Musharraf risks civil war. Account of operations in North Waziristan:
There are believed to be about 8,000 gunmen – a mix of foreign Al-Qaeda volunteers, Afghan Taliban, Pakistani Islamists and local Waziris whose families have for centuries fought off any attempt to impose outside rule on this area. In modern times, even map-makers have been shot to hide the region’s mysteries from the outside world.
Last week soldiers sealed all the roads into Miran Shah, the provincial capital, occupied the hills around it and fired the first artillery salvo in what Musharraf’s many critics have called a war on his own people.
On Friday morning the army moved into parts of Miran Shah itself after militants blew up government buildings overnight. Most of the 60,000 townspeople are feared trapped, but hundreds of families have fled their mud homes in villages nearby and headed east for the sanctuary of Bannu, a town in the neighbouring North West Frontier province.
I watched last week as some of the 80,000 troops deployed in Waziristan dug in alongside the highway outside Mirali, a small town 10 miles east of Miran Shah. Almost all the checkpoints on this stretch of narrow road were empty. Three lay in rubble because the militants had blown them up. No troops drove along the road. They shuttled to the nearby Afghan border by helicopter …
This area was formerly policed – at least nominally – by a tribal militia, but they fled after Taliban death threats. The militia’s highway checkpoint in Mirali is now monitored by dozens of soldiers from bunkers they have dug on both sides of the roads to guard against suicide bombers.
I saw two nervous soldiers standing on the road – 500 yards from each other – checking on incoming and outgoing vehicles. This did not appear to deter the militants, however.
A mile or so from the Mirali checkpoint, four Uzbeks – regarded around here as a byword for Al-Qaeda – wielded powerful walkie-talkies inside a parked white Toyota saloon. One of them kept his face hidden when my driver approached them. Further up the road we saw two more Uzbeks using walkie-talkies.
Whole thing here. About time.
Ed Royce at Wash Times: Musharraf’s big chance.
Telegraph: Mush and Bhutto in power-sharing deal.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:56 am on Sunday, July 29, 2007
4 Responses to “News of Waziristan”
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July 29th, 2007 at 11:44 am
Long overdue, in my opinion. Musharraf needs to let us come in from Afghanistan as well. Anvil and hammer, as it were, although clearing Waziristan will not be an easy task.
July 29th, 2007 at 11:47 am
I am more than sympathetic to communities that want to be left alone by the central state, but when you use your autonomy as a shield to launch violent aggression on the rest of the world, my support for your insular way of life evaporates rather quickly. Amish, yes; al Qaeda, no.
July 29th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
Doesn’t seem like Musharraf is risking overmuch since radical Islamists were determined to take him out eventually anyway. It’s better to be bold and move into the fight than sit still and be a target. I don’t think much of Musharraf, but al-Qaeda, and the Taliban, and fundy Islamists in general, are a cancer on the planet. I hope he wipes them out.
July 29th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
It sounds as though the Pakis need air support–with great big cave destroying bombs.
I always have to give a little chuckle when I hear someone say that it is hopeless to fight because the other side is well prepared and well trained. That completely ignores our own capabilities, which have been proven over and over again against their well prepared and well trained “troops.” And we don’t even have to use innocents as shields! I don’t know about the Pakis, of course. I suspect, however, that they may have a little help from the quiet men from America.