Govt offers to buy weapons from tribes

Staff Report

TANK: The government on Thursday offered to buy heavy weapons from tribal people in South Waziristan Agency at market price, a senior official said.

Assistant Political Officer Khan Bakhsh made the offer during a meeting with elders from the Mehsud tribe in Tank city. “We will pay for the weapons that you sell to the government,” Khan told the meeting of tribal elders who sought a week’s time to consider the offer. “It is a golden opportunity for you to rid yourself of deadly weapons,” Mr Bakhsh told the gathering.

He said the government would buy anti-aircraft guns, missiles, mortar guns, rocket-launchers, landmines, hand-grenades, light machineguns and AK-47 assault rifles. The tribal elders decided to hold a jirga on March 10 to discuss the offer, “We will decide about the offer collectively,” Dr Malik Akbar Ali, one of the elders, told Daily Times. Another official said that the move was aimed at purging Waziristan of weapons where Al Qaeda and Taliban suspects were fighting Pakistani security forces.

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