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Al Qaeda hunt on North West frontier follows old tracks

ANGOR ADDA: US troops on the Afghan side of the border have two simple rules to follow: don’t cross over, and radio the Pakistan Army first before shooting at any suspected Al Qaeda militant spotted over there.

The Pakistani general pointed across the dusty plain on the other side of the frontier from the village of Angor Adda, his finger following a jeep hurtling towards the US base of Shikin a few miles to the north in the Afghan province of Paktia.

“The camp is there, see that patch of white?” General Shaukat Sultan said, indicating a faintly visible compound near the foot of a range of ochre and grey hills.

Everything in South Waziristan, a tribal area in North West Frontier Province has the same two-tone hue, from the high-serrated ridges and rocky slopes of the mountains to the dried out riverbeds and mud walls of its isolated settlements.

“Over there is where our troops killed eight Al Qaeda and captured 18 two months ago,” General Sultan said. That encounter was billed as a demonstration of the Pakistan Amy’s commitment to the US led “war on terror”. Two soldiers were killed. A month later a couple more Al Qaeda men were gunned down in the same area.

Just last week, the Army launched another operation against suspected Islamic militants in South Waziristan involving troops and helicopters.

The Army entered the semi-autonomous tribal areas for the first time in mid-2002 to seal the borders against fugitive Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters. President General Pervez Musharraf said just days after the first of two assassination attempts on him in December that the last time Pakistan had any substantial clue Al Qaeda kingpin Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al Zawahri were in Pakistan was nearly nine months ago.

Electronic surveillance, possibly from one of the US-manned listening posts in the tribal areas, put one of them in Waziristan but subsequent searches yielded nothing.

Byword for militancy: Waziristan is ideal for any seasoned guerrilla fighter, like bin Laden and al Zawahri, to lie low.

The region is redolent with conflict and intrigue. The British military intelligence officer TE Lawrence, better known as “Lawrence of Arabia”, was in Waziristan in 1928 when the Raj was unhappy with a troublesome king in Kabul.

For more than 150 years the mountain caves of the NWFP provided hiding for mujahideen, who India’s British colonial rulers dubbed “Hindustani Fanatics.”

Like bin Laden, they were followers of the strict fundamentalist Wahabi sect of Islam that spread out of Arabia to the Indian sub-continent in the early 19th Century.

Their running battles with the British lasted over a century.

“We found the ashes of his fire still warm in his cave but he had flown. Our informer as usual informed both ways.”

Jack Lowis, the British Political Agent for South Waziristan, wrote those words 60 years ago about the hunt for the Faqir of Ipi, a Muslim whose fighters took on the British Raj.

The Faqir was never caught, but he represents more than just a historical parallel. His son was reportedly a brother-in-arms of bin Laden, fighting with the mujahideen who drove the Red Army out of Afghanistan in the 1980s. Friend or foe: Pakistan says it has captured more than 500 Al Qaeda suspects so far, but its army has suffered casualties in the hunt.

At another village in South Waziristan 10 troops and two Al Qaeda members were killed in a clash last June. But still, US servicemen carry tales back to reporters in Kabul of Taliban militia slipping over the border for sanctuary in Pakistan, unhindered by watching Pakistani troops.

General Sultan bristled with indignation: “There is no question of anyone in the Pakistan army assisting the enemy. They owe their loyalty to the flag, not to any individuals.”

Pakistan’s forces are full of Pashtuns. And the Taliban, an Islamic student militia that emerged less than two decades ago, is also largely Pashtun.

While many tribesmen dislike the Taliban for preaching ways that go against traditional Pashtun culture, local leaders say the ethnic ties mean sympathies for the Taliban are there. To add to the complications of making out friend from foe on the border, a string of friendly fire incidents between US and Pakistani forces highlighted a communication gap.

On New Year’s Eve last year, a US F-16 warplane dropped a bomb on a madrassa near Angor Adda killing two Pakistani troops after an exchange of fire in which a US soldier also died. In August, US forces shot dead two Pakistani soldiers in another “friendly fire” incident in Waziristan this time provoking a protest from General Musharraf.

Procedures have been tightened since. US officers from the Shikin base regularly meet their counterparts in Angor Adda, and keep them informed by radio. Pakistani officers say the US troops are also required to alert them first before firing across the border to avoid return fire.

Status symbols: Bullets fly regularly in Waziristan even without the two friendly armies’ crossfire. The tribes have a gun culture that makes Detroit appear tame.

“People really do own heavy arms rocket and grenade launchers, sometimes even shoulder-fired stinger missiles,” said Sikander Hayat Khan Sherpao, an opposition lawmaker in Peshawar.

Olaf Caroe, the last British Governor-General on the Frontier and an authority on Pashtun tribes, compared to the Wazir to a panther and the region’s other main clan, the Mahsud, to a wolf. He wrote: “The wolf pack is more purposeful, more united and more dangerous.”

Angor Adda is in Mahsud territory. As an army patrol passed by, two Mahsud youths lounged around a Frontier Force checkpoint in the village as if they owned it.

The Kalashnikovs cradled in their arms gave them the right to act that way, just as the Martini-Henry rifles and the long-barrelled jezails of their forefathers did in bygone eras. A Pakistan Army colonel nodded wisely: “This is a very dangerous place. Every child has a gun.” —Reuters

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