Asia Times: THE ROVING EYE


	October 16, 2001	atimes.com

India/Pakistan

THE ROVING EYE
Tribal land is Talibanland
By Pepe Escobar

BARA, Khyber Agency, Pakistan - The grand tribal jirga (council) was in full swing on Sunday. Between 500 and 600 prominent elders from three agencies on the Pakistan border with Afghanistan - Mohmand, Bajar and Khyber - attended, fully turbaned and fully armed. Almost 50 of the leaders spoke in the session lasting for more than five hours.

And everyone basically said the same thing: they urged Pakistan's leader President General Pervez Musharraf to step down, and they called for a jihad against the United States. Abdul Wadoud Afridi, from the powerful Afridi clan, had called the jirga, and he was in charge of the microphone when it came time to announce the decision of the meeting - all of the religious groups in the three agencies will adopt a single platform and wage a jihad against the US.

The groups claimed that they would defend their 1,400 kilometer border with Afghanistan "until the last drop of blood" and that as soon as American troops landed in Afghanistan they would depart for their jihad.

This crucial decision in Bara - 25 kilometers from the Afghan border - should be taken seriously by the US. The tribal areas are practically untouched by Pakistani law, and they are ruled by elders according to Pashtunwali - the strict, ancient Pashtun honor code. This is the hotbed of the Taliban's rearguard troops - they are well armed, well motivated and profoundly knowledgeable of the treacherous terrain in the mountains of Afghanistan. In these three agencies - and also in the other five - women are donating their jewelry, affluent men are donating their gold, and even kids are asking their parents when they get to go on the jihad. Just in Mohmand Agency, the donations top more than US$1.4 million - mostly from wealthy tribal businessmen involved in arms and drug smuggling.

The speakers in Bara said that their ethnic Pashtun Taliban brothers were being punished "because they refused to bow to the US, and this could not be tolerated by world-known terrorist America". They said that the real aim of America was "to destroy the Pakistani nuclear program, curb the Islamic movement and eliminate Islamic thought from the Pakistani Army". This interpretation bears a striking resemblance to what many intellectuals and political analysts are saying in Peshawar, the restive Pakistani city on the Khyber Pass close to the border with Afghanistan.

The tribal leaders also accused Musharraf of "high treason" - "and for that he is punishable". The speakers said that America was claiming supremacy of the world, "but the only supreme power was Almighty Allah".

In two declarations - echoing Taliban leader Mullah Omar's latest statement from somewhere near Kandahar - the jirga members said that "the fate of the US will not be different from that of Britain and the USSR", in reference to two previous occupying powers which were unable to conquer Afghanistan. The leaders blamed the Pakistani government for the fact that the whole tribal area has been declared a no-go area for foreigners: not only does the Pakistani government "restrain tribals from taking part in any political activity, but it keeps the world unaware of such activity". A violent protest campaign is expected not only around Peshawar, but also in the capital Islamabad.

Fresh from his release from house arrest - due to the provincial government bowing to vociferous street protests in Peshawar - Maulana Fazlur Abdul Rahman, leader of his own faction of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), is back on the scene with guns blazing. He is openly calling for a war of Muslims against infidels. According to JUI sources, more than 60,000 JUI "martyrs" are ready to leave to defend Afghanistan. This would be in addition to the reported 100,000 from Mohmand Agency alone who are ready to go. The JUI is also calling for all people in Pakistan to boycott American products.

Rahman insists that the army is now against the nation. He seems to be fully in tune with the mood of the nation: In a recent poll, 86 percent of the people interviewed said that they were against the American strikes. Rahman also said that those who abandoned the Taliban and Afghanistan would also "compromise on Kashmir tomorrow". Musharraf - a staunch supporter of Kashmir's freedom struggle - is now being vilified for something that even he would never dream of doing. Or could he?

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