PESHAWAR, 11 October 2003 — Pakistan yesterday extended a crackdown on tribesmen accused of sheltering Taleban and Al-Qaeda sympathizers on the Afghan border.
Last week, the Pakistani military arrested 18 Al-Qaeda and Taleban suspects and killed eight others after swooping on a hideout near the border town of Angor Adda in the South Waziristan tribal area.
Yesterday, provincial authorities started seizing vehicles, sealing shops and arresting members of two more Pashtun tribes who have been asked to surrender 12 men on suspicion they had been harboring Taleban or Al-Qaeda militants.
The action follows a similar operation against another tribe that had been asked by the authorities to hand over three tribesmen for the same offense.
So far 38 tribesmen have been arrested, but none of the 15 men wanted by the government has been found.
In the past, Pakistan’s government has appeared reluctant to crack down on the conservative and heavily armed tribesmen in the border areas, who have always enjoyed considerable autonomy.
But Islamabad has come under increasing pressure from the United States to seal its border and prevent Taleban militants using Pakistan as a base for attacks on neighboring Afghanistan.
Yesterday, government and military officials from Afghanistan, the United States and Pakistan met in the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi to discuss cooperation in operations in the border area.
Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman Omar Samad, who attended the meeting, told reporters in Kabul that his government welcomed Pakistan’s latest operations, and both the Afghan and American sides had offered to cooperate.
“We are just witnessing some qualitative change in Pakistani operations in the tribal regions against terrorist elements, which is a positive sign and encouraging sign that needs to be continued and not be limited for any reason whatsoever,” he said.
Samad said it remained a serious concern that Taleban and allied militants were regrouping in Pakistan, conducting recruitment and fund-raising drives there and rearming.
“It requires a lot more effort on our part, on the Pakistani part and the coalition part,” he said, referring to the US-led military force in Afghanistan.
A Pakistani government official said Al-Qaeda suspects, who could be Arab nationals, and Taleban remnants were moving out of the region to Afghanistan or Pakistan’s Balochistan province to escape the crackdown.
Muhammad Azam Khan, administrator of the South Waziristan tribal agency on the Afghan border, said authorities would continue to pressurize the tribes to surrender the wanted men.
Provincial authorities say tribal leaders have violated an agreement reached with the government in May that they would deny sanctuary to “aliens”.
Laws which govern Pakistan’s tribal areas allow for tribes to be punished collectively if they fail to maintain order.
Locals said the first tribe against which the crackdown was launched on Wednesday had refused to cooperate, saying it was unable to track down the wanted men and needed more time.
“We are a deeply conservative society. The tribes are simply not willing to extend any help to the government in turning over those they believe are true mujahedeen (holy warriors) of Islam,” a tribesman said by telephone from the area.
13 Family Members Die in Crash
At least 13 people, all from the same family, were killed when a heavy truck tipped onto the van they were traveling in at a toll post near Hyderabad city yesterday, police and hospital sources said.
The family lived in Karachi’s eastern Korangi district, and was going to bring home the bride of a family member from her parents’ home in Umerkot, a town near Hyderabad. The newly wed Mohammad Nadeem was among the dead. Three people were seriously injured, doctors said.
