ISLAMABAD, 15 March 2004 — The tribal militia in South Waziristan agency has postponed operation against Al-Qaeda suspects for now. Reports from Wana said the militia raised by the Zelikhel tribe has postponed operation owing to the death of a woman in the house of a person whose house the Zelikhel were to raid.
The Zelikhel raised the militia under an agreement with the federal government to hunt down suspects harboring Al-Qaeda men in the area.
The operation has now been postponed until March 16. It has been decided that the tribesmen would hand over wanted persons to the government after the funeral of the woman.
Earlier the tribal elders in South Waziristan formed a 10 member delegation to locate the wanted men accused of sheltering terrorists and persuade them to surrender to the authorities after the expiry of a 48-hour deadline for them to turn themselves in to officials on Saturday.
“There was no response to the Zelikhel tribe’s ultimatum but the Jirga has decided to give the wanted tribesmen another chance to surrender peacefully to the tribal army,” a tribal elder told Arab News by telephone from Wana after attending a second Jirga in three days.
He said the delegation from the Usmankhel, Kakakhel and Sheikhbuzit tribes would try to meet the wanted men and convince them to surrender.
“We will take the next action after the delegation returns,” the tribesman said. But he would not comment on when the delegation would return. The Jirga, which assembled thousands of armed tribesmen on Saturday, will meet again today.
In another development, thousands of tribesmen meeting yesterday in a remote border town insisted there were no Al-Qaeda suspects in their area and condemned frequent search operations in the tribal belt.
“Tribesmen are loyal Pakistanis and as true Muslims they are opposed to all acts of terrorism,” Islamic cleric Maulana Samaruddin told a peace conference attended by some 10,000 people from the northwestern tribal region along the Afghan border.
Residents said the meeting was convened by the local chapter of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party in Miran Shah town of North Waziristan district.
Pakistani troops should stop razing the homes of tribesmen on suspicions that people in the region harbor foreign terrorists, Samaruddin said, adding that “there are no Al-Qaeda terrorists in our area.”
