Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

The Tribal Warriors
the Faqir of Ipi. ‘Both men fought against invaders and for the cause
of Islam,’ said Mohabat Wazir a trader in Wana. ‘Like Faqir Ipi, they
would never be able to get bin Laden.’
The Waziris lived on both sides of the Durand Line between Pakistan
and Afghanistan. Many of their men had taken part in the Afghan jihad
in the 1980s and fought alongside the Taliban against the US forces and
their Afghan allies. The men were born fighters and learnt the use of
guns at a very early age in keeping with local traditions, acquiring more
sophisticated fighting skills during the long years of the Afghan war.
They used that skill to put up fierce resistance to the Pakistani army.
Though the tribesmen were religious, the rise of militant Islam in
Waziristan was a recent phenomenon. In 1947, people were deeply
unhappy to be part of Pakistan and supported the Pashtun nationalist
struggle for the establishment of an independent ‘Pashtunistan’. 14 The
movement, which had gained popular support in the North West
Frontier Province in the 1950s and 1960s, was basically secular; it
was in the 1980s that radical Islam took root. Pakistani military rulers
not only used Islam to mobilize support for the Afghan jihad against
Soviet forces, but also to undermine Pashtun nationalism. Pakistani
intelligence agencies, in collaboration with the CIA, funnelled millions
of dollars and weapons through the tribal area. The region became a
conservatory which fomented the growth of radical Islam, sustained
by a network of Saudi-funded madrasas. In the late 1980s, after the
end of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the supply of money
and weapons had stopped, but foreign-funded madrasas continue to
flourish. Less than 30 per cent of the tribesmen attended school, while
90 per cent would drop out before completing their education. With
little economic activity, most people lived on smuggling, gun-running
or drug-trafficking. The rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan had given
further impetus to the spread of militancy. Thousand of tribesmen had
joined the conservative Islamic militia.
Until 1997, the tribal areas did not have adult franchise and only
a small number of maliks (tribal elders), had voting rights. Political
parties were banned, and the vacuum was filled by the mullahs.
Hence it did not come as a surprise when, in the 2002 parliamentary
elections, the hardline Islamic alliance, Muttehida Majlis Amal, 15 not
only swept the polls in Waziristan, but also formed the government
in the North West Frontier Province for the first time in 58 years. That
had provided a conducive environment to the Taliban and al-Qaeda
remnants to turn the tribal region into their sanctuaries.
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