North Waziristan & the Haqqani Network

Located between the Khost province of eastern Afghanistan and KP of northwest Pakistan, North Waziristanis the second largest tribal region of FATA.

According to security experts, the area is considered today to be the epicentre not only of violence inAfghanistanandPakistanbut also a major source of International terrorism. Along with its geographic isolation, difficult terrain and relatively stable coalition of militant groups, they believe that the region has become the most important centre of militancy of FATA because of the impunity with which militants in the area have operated.

Local tribesmen do not approve of the presence of foreign militants, especially the Uzbeks and Punjabis, because they encroach the tribes’ lands and are insensitive to local customs

The most important militant group operating in the region is the Haqqani Network, an Afghan insurgent group led by Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani. Haqqani left his native Khost province and settled in North Waziristanas an exile during the republican Afghan government of Sardar Mohammad Dauod Khan in early 1970s. His son Sirajuddin, popularly known as Khaleefa, who became a key insurgent leader in theAfghanistanin mid 1980s, manages the network’s organisation from the Danday Darpakhel village near Miramshah in North Waziristan and carries out attacks on US and NATO forces inAfghanistan, according to security experts and local elders.

The second most important group in North Waziristanis led-by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a key militant leader known for hosting foreign militants. Bahadur was announced as Naib Amir (deputy head) under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud upon the formation of the 2007 Tehreek-e-TalibanPakistan (TTP), an umbrella organisation of various militant groups operating in FATA. However Bahadur later formed an anti-TTP bloc by joining hands with Maulvi Nazir’sSouth Waziristan based group because of disagreements over TTP attacks against the Pakistani security forces and tribal rivalries of Mehsuds. The Haqqani Network and Bahadur are considered ‘good Taliban’ by thePakistan military authorities as they don’t carry out attacks insidePakistan and focus only on Afghanistan.

North Waziristan also provides shelter to several other local, foreign and international militant groups, such as the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU), the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), the Islamic Army of Great Britain , Ittehad-e-Jihad Islami (IJI), the TTP, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the Harkat-ul-Jihad al Islami, the Fidayeen-e-Islami, Harkat-ul-Mujaheen, the Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Tayyaba, according to a latest report published in The News. Elders and political activists of North Waziristan say that many of the foreign militants, especially Central Asians, Arabs and Afghans, arrived inPakistan’s tribal areas when their bases inAfghanistanwere closed down in late 2001. They say that the local population does not approve of the presence of foreign militants, especially the Uzbeks and Punjabis, because they encroach the tribes’ lands and are insensitive to local customs. “We need neither good Taliban nor bad Taliban. The Pakistani government should abandon their policy of using militant groups against each other and should take stern measures to flush out all of these monsters from the area. They are not only carrying out subversive attacks inAfghanistanbut also destroying peace inPakistan,” said an elder from Dawar tribe of North Waziristan.

“We hate Taliban and there are no two opinions about it, but we are compelled to bear the atrocities of these militant outfits because the state has no writ,” said another elder from the Utmanzai tribe. “Our voices are not heard and we are not given appropriate space and airtime in the mainstream media.”

Because of the reluctance of Pakistani authorities to carry out a military operation in the region,USdrone have targeted the Mir Ali, Dattakhel and Miramshah areas of North Waziristan extensively, with five out of six drone strikes inPakistannow being reordered in North Waziristan. Residents of the tribal region say that they live in a constant state of fear of being hit, because of local and foreign militants. The attacks occur without any warning and are often not related to the Pakistani military’s operations.

“The drone frightens women and children who sometimes become the victims, especially if the intended targets are close to their homes,” the Utmanzai elder said.

Tribal elders believe many foreign and local militant leaders have been killed in drone strikes inNorth Waziristan. New America Foundation, a Washington-based think tank, estimates on basis of media reports that 80% of the people killed in drones were Al Qaeda and Taliban militants. The accuracy rose to an astonishing 95% in 2010. This assertion was corroborated by Pakistani security official Maj Gen Ghayur Mehmood, who commands troops inNorth Waziritan, in a March 9 media briefing. Between 2007 and 2011, he said, 164 drone strikes had carried out and over 964 terrorists had been killed. Of those killed, 793 were foreigners – Arabs, Uzbeks, Tajiks, Chechens, Filipinos and Moroccans.

When drones kill a key militant leader or fighter, the Ittehad-e-Mujahedeen-e-Khurasan (IMK), a relatively less-known alliance of all local and foreign militant outfits, kill innocent people belonging to local Utmanzai and Dawar tribes, accusing them of spying. The murders have created more hatred for the foreigners. Most of the killings are carried out by Uzbek and Arab members of the IMK, tribal elders say.

Some Pakistani militant groups have abandoned the IMK because of the brutal ways in which they murder people. “We tried our best to reform the IMK but repeated attempts to correct them failed,” Bahadur said in a recent statement issued after pressure from local Wazir tribesmen.

It is pertinent to mention here that with the help of militants led by Nazir, the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe of South Waziristan successfully flushed out Uzbek militants of IMU from Wana and other Wazir-dominated areas of the region in a spring 2007 uprising sparked by the brutality of the Uzbeks.

Similarly, the tense relationship between local and foreign militant outfits operating in North Waziristan has been displayed several times in the past, particularly in November 2006, when the IMU and the IJU accused Bahadur of betraying them and jumping into the government camp by demanding their eviction from theNorth Waziristan. Differences between Gul Bahadur and Central Asian militant outfits were solved after the Haqqani Network intervened.

Security experts say that the Haqqani Network has been playing the role of bridge between the local and foreign militants, especially Pakistani and Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda. It was the Haqqani Network that brokered a truce between the Nazir-led militant group and the TTP in South Waziristan when they were fighting over expulsion of Uzbek militants from the region, said a Bannu-based journalist, adding that that the Haqqani Network has strong presence not only in North Waziristan but also in South Waziristan, Kurram and Orakzai tribal agencies.

The Shia Turi tribes of neighbouring Kurram Agency say the growing drone attacks that killed dozens of Al Qaeda, Haqqani Network and TTP leaders, and the US pressure on Pakistani government to begin an operation inNorth Waziristan, has increased the importance of Kurram for the Haqqani Network. The network will also find in Kurram Agency new passages intoAfghanistan, especially with help from former TTP leader Fazal Saeed Haqqani. And it will bring new problems for the Shias of Kurram Agency.

Taliban Kill the Guy Responsible for Killing an ISI Official

TTP kills Asian Tigers chief for Khawaja’s murder

Daily Times Monitor 

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has killed the main chief of the banned militant group, the Asian Tigers, in North Waziristan.

According to details, the body of Sabir Mehsud was found early morning in the main market of the Razmuk area in North Waziristan. 

A letter, stating that Mehsud was the leader of the Asian Tigers, and the TTP had killed him, along with two other aides after kidnapping them, was discovered from the body. 

The letter also revealed that the Asian Tigers had abducted and killed former Inter-Services Intelligence official Khalid Khawaja in March 2010, and the TTP had taken revenge of his murder by killing the Asian Tigers’ chief.

Army Refusing to Get into North Waziristan

It took just a few months for the Pakistani military to clear the Swat Valley’s lush, mountainous tribal terrain of its Taliban usurpers last summer, using some 30,000 troops to dislodge the guerrillas from the once-bustling tourist haven, 80 miles northwest of Islamabad. Now, however, almost a year after winning the war, the same number of troops are still in place in order to hold Swat, rebuild it and prevent a Taliban resurgence — and that may keep Islamabad from going after the extremists in other parts of Pakistan’s unruly frontier with Afghanistan.

The U.S. has often appealed to Pakistan to do just that, specifically against elements in North Waziristan. More than 200 miles south of Swat, the tribal territory is a base for militants targeting U.S. troops just across the border in Afghanistan; it is also believed to be a refuge for senior al-Qaeda leaders.

Yet the Pakistani military has refused to go into North Waziristan because it says its forces are already stretched thin (the bulk of the country’s troops are stationed along the eastern border with India, the nation Islamabad still considers its primary foe).

Opening up a new front in North Waziristan now, Pakistani military officials say, could undo the gains achieved in areas like Swat by diverting troops from areas they must continue to control.

As one officer said, “To hold the ground, you have to be on the ground.” The heavy security footprint, the Pakistanis argue, is aimed at avoiding the U.S. military’s experience in Iraq, where some areas like Mosul north of Baghdad, once cleared, saw troops draw down only to have militants return and necessitate the re-insertion of American forces to clear them out again.

Indeed, the Pakistanis say, while they have largely cleared militants from Swat, which is in the North-West Frontier Province, as well as the South Waziristan and Bajaur areas along the Afghan border, the army remains engaged in battles in the Khyber district not far from Swat and nearby Orakzai, where the army claims almost daily double-digit Taliban kill figures (numbers that cannot be independently verified).

The Pakistanis also argue that there’s more to holding an area than just boots on the ground. As part of its counterinsurgency strategy, the Pakistani military says it is taking the lead in eliminating the factors that helped the area fall to the extremists in the first place: poverty and bureacractic ineptitude and corruption.

In Swat, it has set up joint civilian-military liaison cells, which bring together representatives of the military, provincial government and tribal elders.

“There are so many reasons that we fell to them [the Taliban] and they took over, so many reasons,” says Bakhd Zada, a tribal elder from Devlai, a town of some 30,000, 13 miles from Mingora in the Swat district. “There’s poverty, lack of knowledge, and we were misguided,” he says. “We need to educate the people and we need job creation. You know when you are empty minded and you have nothing to do, that is a place for demons to develop.”

Army spokesman in Swat says the military is taking its cue from the populace. “We listened to them, we tried to solve their problems,” he says. “They’re our own brothers and sisters, we’re not like the Americans in Iraq.”

In Swat, the military has surged ahead of an excruciatingly slow civilian bureaucracy. Soldiers are reconstructing roads, bridges, health centers, water systems and libraries across the valley. The Army has recruited and trained thousands of police officers, and rebuilt 217 of the 400 or so schools destroyed by the Taliban. It is also footing the bill, thanks to a nationwide voluntary contribution of two days’ pay by the troops themselves, a move that raised more than 100 million rupees (almost $1.2 million). The military is also much more efficient. Lt. Col. Abbas points to the restoration of a historic hostel in Swat as an example: Civil contractors estimate it would cost 80 million rupees for the reconstruction. The army did it for 20 million rupees, of its own money.

Commissioner Fazal Karim Khattak, the administrative head of the provincial government in Swat and seven other nearby districts, rejects criticism that the government isn’t doing enough, although he admits that there is a heavy reliance on the military. The destruction is so widespread, he says, that it’s “not really possible” for the government to do it alone. “I would recommend that the army stays here in the same numbers for quite some time,” he adds, “because the civilian institutions have been ruined so much that it will take some time for them to stand on their own feet.”

Still, some people say they are wary of the army’s intentions — and its omnipresence. They fear that a military accustomed to being in control is unlikely to relinquish power and give up its space to civilian institutions. Lt. Col. Abbas dismisses such concerns. “Pulling [the military] back is the decision of the political government. Whenever they require us, we’re here. If they say we are no more required, again we’re happy,” he says. “But since we’re sitting here in the valley, we are reconstructing.” And not going after the extremists in North Waziristan.

13 Year Old Trained as a Suicidal Bomber

KHOST, Afghanistan October 20/ 2008 – Rohullah, 13, ran away from home in Gardez Province in southeastern Afghanistan to Miramshah in neighbouring Pakistan. Unwittingly he was drawn into a suicide-bombers’ cell, and trained to use explosive vests to kill Afghan and US forces. Arrested soon after re-entering Afghanistan, he is now in prison in Khost Province. From his cell Rohullah told his story:

“I had serious disputes with my parents on many issues and as time went by I felt I could not tolerate that, so I escaped and went to Miramshah. I bumped into an old man there whom I had seen in our village. He took me to his home and I stayed there for two nights.

“After that the old man introduced me to a middle-aged man [Shawkat] and asked him to take me to a Madrasah [an Islamic school with free board and lodging].

“Shawkat took me to a house where about 26 other boys – some younger and some older than me – were housed. Shawkat and other men were teaching us about Jihad, Islam and holy wars, and at night they were showing us films about the cruelty of foreign infidels to Muslims, the bombing of women and children, and the struggle by the Taliban.

“For six days I did not know why they were showing and telling us all those things. Then one afternoon Shawkat congratulated me and said that I had been selected for martyrdom. He also told me that after the martyrdom I would enter Heaven and would be remembered as a hero.

“Shawkat and two other men trained me how to use explosive vests. They also told me that I would earn more blessings from God if I detonated my vest in a crowded area and killed as many infidels as possible.

“The arrangement was: I should go to Khost [province] and do the suicide attack. Three weeks later I travelled to Khost and met an intermediary who was supposed to give me a suicide vest. I could not carry a vest with me because of the security checkpoints.

“But on my first night in Khost I was arrested [by Afghan intelligence forces]. I know I did wrong and I regret it. I miss my parents and my brothers and sisters. I wish I had never escaped from home.”