WANA, 1 April 2004 — A grand tribal jirga asked the Zalikhel sub-tribe to surrender five most wanted tribesmen to the political administration in South Waziristan Agency within 10 days.

“The Zalikhel sub-tribe met yesterday to devise a strategy for the wanted men’s capture,” a jirga member Malik Waris Khan Afridi said. “They (the Zalikhels) will inform us whether they can do it on their own or need other tribes’ help,” he added.

Waris Khan said the jirga members from six tribal zones told the Zalikhel elders that failure by a sub-tribe of 50,000 men to deal with five men “means the entire sub-tribe supports” them and “they are involved in terrorism, which is against the tribal custom”.

Chief of the Wazir tribe, Malik Qadir Khan, said the jirga unanimously decided that the Zalikhel tribe should hand over the five Al-Qaeda sympathizers — Neik Muhammad, Muhammad Sharif, Noor Islam, Maulvi Abbas and Javed Tarmazkhel. “This decision is for Wana, and will not apply to any other tribal zone,” he said.

“If the Zalikhels fail to honor the jirga’s decision then any government action will be legitimate under the tribal traditions,” he observed. But observers were not optimistic about the Zalikhels changing their attitude soon unless “non-military coercive methods” were used. A Zalikhel elder, Malik Muhammad Anwar, denied that his tribe was “helpless” against the wanted men or was not cooperating. “We surrendered 163 people wanted by the administration and demolished 28 houses of suspected people.

“What irritates us is that a political process was not allowed to reach a logical conclusion. On five occasions, the government ordered operations on the day when a jirga or a tribal lashkar was to meet,” he said.

Meanwhile, President Pervez Musharraf vowed Tuesday to keep up the pressure to flush militants out of tribal areas bordering Afghanistan and said the Al-Qaeda network was exploiting Islam to sow terror.

Musharraf made these remarks in a national television program glimpses of which were broadcast in a news bulletin yesterday morning.

The president again warned the foreign terrorists hiding in the mountainous tribal areas near Afghan borders to surrender or leave Pakistan and vowed to tackle them with military force.

“I will use military, Frontier Corps (paramilitary) and tribal forces against those non-Pakistanis hiding in the mountains,” Musharraf said.

“Extremists should surrender or leave our territory, we will tackle them with force.”

A 12-day siege of some 500 Al-Qaeda fighters by 7,500 troops in tribal lands near the northeastern town of Wana last week left 63 militants dead and 166 local and foreign terrorists were arrested. At least 46 government troops were killed and 26 wounded.

However, the Pakistani military have so far failed to net any top Al-Qaeda operatives in the ongoing offensive.

“They (Al-Qaeda) have a political agenda and it is not at all a religious agenda to spread Islam,” Musharraf said.

“If they are against any country or have an agenda against United States, they are furthering this agenda from our country to other countries.”

Musharraf said Al-Qaeda was “spreading terrorism in the entire world, mostly in the Muslim world.”

“They are the mastermind behind all terrorist bombings in Pakistan and elsewhere and we have caught them.” Musharraf earlier this month said Al-Qaeda was behind two attempts on his life last year.