Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak
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1 <strong>Frontline</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong><br />
It was not only ideological bonds and sympathy that helped al-<br />
Qaeda fugitives buy the support of the tribesmen, but also money<br />
– the people were poor and easily lured by it. In an area where there<br />
was no other employment, the influx of al-Qaeda money was just<br />
one more way by which tribesmen gained influence. 16 bin Laden’s<br />
men distributed millions of dollars among the tribal elders in return<br />
for shelter. Local fighters, enlisted by al-Qaeda, received up to $250<br />
each as monthly wages, many times more than the monthly wages of a<br />
government soldier. 17 <strong>The</strong> militant commanders used to get advances<br />
for their services running into millions. <strong>The</strong> residents also received<br />
huge monetary benefits by renting out their compounds for shelter<br />
and training camps. Most of the al-Qaeda funds came through illegal<br />
and informal channels from Arab countries. While the tribesmen<br />
were familiar with the art of resistance, they had also learnt the art of<br />
extortion from outsiders who tried to buy them. 18<br />
<strong>The</strong> <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i security forces launched an offensive against the<br />
militants in the second week of March 2004, once the deadline for<br />
the tribesmen to hand over foreign fighters had expired. <strong>The</strong> military<br />
authorities had boasted that the operation would be over in a couple<br />
of days, but the intensity of the fighting shocked the <strong><strong>Pak</strong>istan</strong>i army<br />
commanders. <strong>The</strong> army suffered heavy casualties in the 12 days of<br />
bloody fighting. On 16 March, at least 50 soldiers were killed and<br />
many others captured by the tribesmen and their foreign guests<br />
when they raided militant hideouts. 19 <strong>The</strong> fiercest battles took place<br />
in Kaloosha and Shin Warsak, where scores of suspected al-Qaeda<br />
fighters had lived under the protection of local militants. Finding<br />
themselves surrounded, scores of paramilitary troops threw away their<br />
weapons and fled for their lives. ‘Many soldiers took shelter inside a<br />
mosque when they came under fire,’ Ehsan Wazir, a local resident,<br />
told me when I went to Kaloosha a few weeks later. ‘Among them was<br />
a colonel who came out with the Qur’an on his head begging for his<br />
life. He was let go after the tribesmen stripped off his uniform.’<br />
It was a no-win situation for the government forces <strong>The</strong>y could not<br />
abandon the operation halfway and had to use bombers and gunship<br />
helicopters against what was earlier described as a ‘handful of foreign<br />
militants and some local miscreants’. Among the foreign militants,<br />
mostly from Uzbekistan and Chechnya who had taken shelter in the<br />
area, was Tahir Yaldashev. <strong>The</strong> militant leader had become the head<br />
of the <strong>Islam</strong>ic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) after its founder, Juma<br />
Namangani, was killed in the US bombing campaign in Afghanistan