AS we approach Peshawar, deep inside Pakistan’s autonomous tribal hinterland and a two-hour drive from Islamabad, we leave modernity behind us and enter a largely rural part of the country. With Peshawar fast approaching ahead in the heart of the Pakhtoon tribal region the more people appear religious.
Although dubbed by the Western press as a lawless area, the crime rate in the region is amazingly low. According to official Pakistani statistics, the crime rate is close to zero. “There is considerably no crime,” said my guide, an official from the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad.
The heavily armed, tall, sturdy, tough and remarkably handsome tribes that inhabit this region are considered upright Pakistani citizens and renowned for their honesty. This is something agreed by other non-Pathan people of Pakistan of various political backgrounds. The Pathans are known to keep their word and never violate agreements in pure tribal fashion.
Throughout history, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and also the tribal belt in eastern Afghanistan has never been conquered by a foreign army. During the British Raj, the crown consistently failed to subdue the region with local tribal warriors achieving a near-like legendary status for their bravery and ferocity in their “jihad” against imperialism right until 1946.
As we reached the Khybar Pass on the outskirts of Peshawar, our police escorts from Islamabad halted and we were then escorted further by the guardians of the Khybar Pass known as the “Khybar Rifles” — a security unit that is run and controlled by the Pakistani government but mostly made up of young tribal men. The region is autonomous and the Pakistani government feels it is easier for them to control the situation indirectly rather than directly.
In fact the tribal belt does not even come under Pakistani domestic law. Matters are resolved and judged by a council of elders known as a jirga, which issues verdicts in line with tribal laws.
In a recent interview to Arab News, Gen. Shaukat Sultan, former army spokesman, said it was difficult to deal in the area in any way apart from the tribal way and the best way to operate was by working closely with the local jirgas.
He pointed out that it was best to let the tribes make their own decisions through their own tradition and culture and that trying to subdue the region would just make matters difficult and create enemies. “Let them give a helping hand to the government, the government cannot do it alone,” he said.
Inside Peshawar and on the road leading to the Khybar Pass — the safest entry point into Afghanistan — a long line of trucks could be seen heading for war-torn Afghanistan. More than 80 percent of goods imported into the country enter from Peshawar. Countless other trucks could be seen parked on the side of the mud-track with drivers having a snooze or drinking hot milky tea.
However, with war raging savagely in Afghanistan and the Taleban leading a heavy insurgency, truck drivers, local people and officials in the region said the trucks were mostly returning back to Pakistan with their loads intact. The economic situation in Afghanistan is bad with hardly any buyers for foreign imports.
Sial Khan Shawary, a 38-year-old truck driver on his way to the Afghan border, has been working the road for the past 18 years.
Shawary said that in order to enter Afghanistan, truck drivers end up waiting in 24-hour queues and upon entry are regularly harassed by Afghan government police looking for bribes. “Whatever money we give them is not enough. The Afghan officers then hit us with their guns demanding more money,” he said, adding that he spends over 3,000 rupees in bribes on each trip.
On the same road is a market full of men buying and selling with no women in sight. In this part of Pakistan, most women stay at home while the men do the daily running around.
According to Abdullah, a local tribesman, the setup is partly to do with culture and partly to do with there being hardly any education and job opportunities for men let alone women.
Basic education and living amenities have only just crept into the region during the last decade or so.
In fact, most women teachers in the tribal area are non-tribal and come from other parts of the country. Educated tribal women who wish to work, do so in other parts of Pakistan where they are unknown. Even cell phones do not work in the majority of parts of the NWFP region, which is extremely rugged and mountainous.
Back in the 80s and the early 90s, during the jihad against the Soviet Union, Peshawar was known as the “City of Mujahedeen.” Many of the mujahedeen, of various nationalities, settled their families in the city and would travel back and forth across the border to take part in the guerrilla war.
Financial, military and logistical aid at the time came from the US and countless other Muslim countries. Growing up in the United States in the 1980s, mujahedeen leaders would regularly visit local mosques where I lived collecting money for their cause. I remember a bearded man dressed in native Afghan “shalwar kamiz” preaching about the jihad and the miracles witnessed therein as part of a campaign to raise money for fighters.
With the Soviet withdrawal in the late 90s, the jihad came to a close and most of the foreigners and Arabs, who resided in Peshawar and Afghanistan, returned to their home countries except for a select few who later came to be known as Al-Qaeda. Afghanistan fell into civil war and fragmented into various parts with dozens of ruthless and brutal warlords taking control.
In the mid-90s, a group of Afghan religious students known as the Taleban — an Arabic origin word that translates as students — who had studied in the madrasas of Pakistan began to take control of the country bringing peace and security. The Taleban were viewed as peaceful good Samaritans and rapidly grew in popularity.
Their popularity put them in power, and after decades of war, vast parts of Afghanistan became peaceful. In many places the Taleban took control without even shedding a drop of blood. Afghanistan became peaceful, crime diminished and the thriving poppy trade was brought under control and then finally eradicated. Shariah law was implemented and people became extremely happy.
Over time, Osama Bin Laden, leader of Al-Qaeda, began to stray in his views from what the majority of the world’s Muslims believed in. Bin Laden began labeling governments and individuals as infidels and over a period of time developed enemies that brought him isolation from the rest of the world.
The only thing Al-Qaeda was good for was war. The problem was there was no major enemy to fight in Afghanistan. The Russians had left the country and so Bin Laden took his war abroad. The US realized the up and coming threat to civilization posed by Al-Qaeda and its ideology. However, it failed to realize how and why Al-Qaeda had so many sympathizers.
Thirteen days after two suicide bombings were carried out by Al-Qaeda on two US embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998, American warplanes shelled two sites in Sudan and Afghanistan in a failed attempt to take out Al-Qaeda.
On the dark morning of Sept. 11, 2001, a terrorist attack on the world’s largest symbol of freedom and democracy shocked the entire world, which was left forever changed. It was then that the angry superpower began its war on terror. President George W. Bush, backed by neocon hawks, sought an opportunity to promote his neoconservative ideology, which once stood on the peripherals of Washington politics. He gave world leaders no room to breathe or think in his famous speech when he said, “It’s you’re either with us or against us.”
In turn, another form of extremism, state terrorism, became the hallmark of the day. This was displayed in the unjustified bombing of Iraq, which was preceded by a campaign to mislead the world into thinking that Saddam was making nuclear weapons. State terror also appeared in the form of Guantanamo Bay and other detention centers across the world — including Abu Ghraib — where inmates continue to be treated unjustly, tortured and humiliated. Not to mention the desecration of the Holy Qur’an by US soldiers. In addition, the Palestinian and Israeli conflict and the West’s double standards remain as the core issues behind disenchantment in the Muslim world.
The war on terror has pushed anti-American sentiments in the Muslim world to new heights. According to a recent UN report, anti-Americanism is increasing in the Islamic world.
After US-led forces ousted the Taleban regime in 2001, many Taleban militants and foreign Al-Qaeda members took refuge in Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal regions. There is no doubt that the tribes in the NWFP are pro-Taleban. This is especially the case since the Taleban and the tribes share the same culture and follow the same faith as adhered to by nearly 1 billion Muslims from across the world.
Our group visited an Afghan refugee camp called Kachagari, which is home to more than 80,000 people. Two generations of Afghans have been born in the camp, which lacks basic amenities. There was a diversity of views between the older and the younger generations on how the Taleban ran their short-lived government. However, both generations agreed that the Taleban brought security and peace to the region.
“We want a political avenue to discuss issues and a freer atmosphere,” said Bilal, a young Afghan refugee dressed in a dark blue jacket over his shalwar kamiz. Bilal has aspirations to become a journalist one day. Bilal was also the only Afghan we met who favored Hamid Karzai over the Taleban regime. Hamid Karzai is not favored by the majority of Afghans and fearing assassination is heavily guarded by US troops rather than Afghan soldiers.
Abdul Qader, his turban-clad father who has been living in the refugee camp for the past 27 years and who spoke fluent Arabic, reacted with some resentment at his son’s views and his favoring of Hamid Karzai over the Taleban regime.
Abdul Qader was opposed to the Karzai government calling them a bunch of thieves. “I am pro-Taleban. Why should we believe the lying Americans or the thieves that are ruling our country?” he said.
However, both father and son agreed that with the fall of the Taleban, Afghanistan is not a safe place to live and raise a family. None of the Afghan refugees we spoke to wished to return to Afghanistan at present and prefer to continue living in refugee camps. In fact, Abdul Qader and the other elders at the camp said they were ready to sacrifice their lives for the Taleban and Bin Laden.
Pakistani forces have tried flushing out foreign militants and subduing the tribes. As a result hundreds of people have been killed in the tit-for-tat violence between the tribes and the Pakistan Army.
Recently, Washington expressed displeasure at Pakistan, its main ally in the region. Washington alleges that the Taleban and Al-Qaeda are finding safe havens in the tribal area. In relation to this the Pakistan government signed a peace deal to end the infighting and prevent militants from entering Pakistan. The government believes the deal has led to a reduction of violence in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, the insurgency in Afghanistan continues. Gen. Shaukat told Arab News that there are factors within Afghanistan that are contributing to the insurgency. He explained that even though the Pathans in Afghanistan make up 50 to 60 percent of the population they have been given very little political clout in Karzai’s government.
In Afghanistan, the government’s presence in the countryside is minimal. Afghan security forces make up around 32,000, are over-stretched and unable to take control of the entire country. Hence, the insurgents have relative freedom in the south. US and coalition forces are thus restricted to the northern and eastern sides of the country.
Shaukat added that the south has been relatively ignored in the first three years after the Taleban’s collapse. This has subsequently given the Taleban time to reorganize themselves. He added that Pakistan was suffering as a result because new fighters are continuously being recruited in Afghan refugee camps. He added that if the Pakistan government tries to interfere then the government is made a target.
“If one ignores the reality then you can’t deal with the problem,” said the general. He added, “We have brought the matter of evacuating the refugee camps and sending the refugees back to Afghanistan with the UNHCR. Four camps have so far been evacuated. Some 250,000 people have been sent back but we still have more than three million Afghan refugees.”
Shaukat added, “The overall time frame is that they will go back in 2009. So until that time they will remain here and it is a problem,” he said, adding that the opium trade has been flourishing in the past few years since the American-backed Karzai government came to power.
“There is a linkage between the poppy growers and militancy. President Karzai, himself, has admitted proceeds from the drugs trade is funding the Taleban,” said Shaukat.
As we stood in Michni post, the last Pakistani post to the Khyber Pass that overlooks the Afghan border, Major Hasseeb, pointing at the jagged mountain plains on the right and left of the Khyber Pass, said “It’s impossible to monitor the border and deploy soldiers on the mountains.”
A few minutes later a loud explosion could be heard on the Afghan side of the border. From a distance, smoke could be seen rising to form a mushroom above the mountains. A soldier standing close by said it was a missile. Fearing our safety, I asked if it was dangerous to be out at this time and whether we should take cover.
With a smirk on his face, he wryly said, “Nope, it’s normal. That’s Afghanistan for you. This is the tribal hinterland.”
