Pakistan Tribes Take on Uzbek Militants

The government has chosen to take a back-seat because any perceived support to tribesmen can discredit the whole campaign. (IOL photo)

"This is a tribal uprising against Uzbeks. The tribesmen say they don't want Uzbeks any more," a local administration official told IslamOnline.net, requesting anonymity.

He said some of the tribes had warned that any one giving shelter to Uzbeks would be considered an enemy of Ahmadzai Wazir, the dominant tribe in Wana, the capital of South Waziristan.

Four Uzbeks and two local supporters were killed Thursday when tribesmen fired at their pickup truck in a village near the regional capital Wana, according to local sources.

The administration in South Waziristan confirmed the death of 79 foreign militants and 46 tribesmen, expecting the casualty figure on the Uzbek side to rise further due to continuing fighting.

The number of wounded has been put at more than 200 with most being treated at a local hospital in Wana.

"Fighting is going on and bodies are lying around. There is no way to retrieve the bodies," Yunus Khan, a local journalist, told IOL by telephone.

"The entire region has been in grip of tension during last three days," he said, highlighting a shortage of food supplies in several parts of south Waziristan as a result of fighting.

"The Uzbeks are well dug-in. They are die-hard fighters, but the local tribesmen too are well-trained. That is why both sides are not ready to surrender," a security official told IOL, wishing not to be named.

The fighting reportedly started Monday after Maulavi Nazir, the Taliban chief commander in Wana, ordered followers of Uzbek militant Tahir Yuldashev to disarm.

Sources said Nazir had taken 61 Uzbeks hostages.

Relations between the two sides strained over the involvement of Uzbek militants in local crimes, the a local administration official told IOL.

Yuldashev, who leads a group called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was formerly a close confidant of Osama bin Laden.

He and his men were among thousands of militants who fled the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 and sought shelter with ethnic Pashtun tribesmen in Pakistan's tribal belt along the border.

Fed up

Many believe the fallout between the local tribesmen and the foreign ministers, mostly Uzbeks, was eventual.

"This is not unexpected," Ismail Khan, a Peshawar-based senior journalist who deals with counter-terrorism affairs, told IOL.

"This situation has been developing for last six months following the targeted killings of some 160 tribal elders, who were murdered on the suspicion of being US and Pakistani intelligence agencies' spies."

Khan said the local tribesmen hold the foreign militants responsible for the targeted killings of the pro-government tribal elders.

"When they came here in 2001 following the ousted of Taliban government, they enjoyed the sympathies of local people," he recalled.

"But slowly and gradually, the sympathies were overtaken by fear. They (Uzbeks) started killing the tribal elders one by one whom they suspected of having associated with Pakistani government."

He claimed that the militants are also involved in extortion, targeted killings and kidnap for ransom.

Khan said the ongoing clashes were triggered by an ambush on a pro-government tribal lord, Malik Sadullah Khan on March 6.

"The security guards of Malik Sadullah Khan paid back the attackers in the same coin, which was for the first time since 2001," he insisted.

"Earlier, nobody was willing to stand against them (Uzbeks)."

Khan said the situation assumed alarming proportions a few days back, when an Arab militant, who was a close associate of Nazir, was killed in a clash between the two groups.

"After killing of his Arab associate, Mullah Nazir jumped into the fray, which resulted in fierce clashes between the two sides."

Watching  

"You have to separate the population from the foreign fighters," Rice recently told Congress.

"The Uzbeks are well dug-in. They are die-hard fighters, but the local tribesmen too are well-trained. That is why both sides are not ready to surrender", a security official told IOL, wishing not to be named.

He said Uzbeks in neighboring North Waziristan were trying to come to Wana and support their brethren but authorities were confident that they could stop them.

Sources spoke of hectic efforts by the tribal elders to broker a cease-fire.

A Jirga (tribal parliamentarian) from South Waziristan, led by Maulana Mirajuddin, a member of National Assembly elected from the region, and others went to Wana on Wednesday to make another bid for cessation of hostilities.

They have so far reportedly failed to meet any of the militant commanders battling the Uzbeks.

Nazir, the Taliban chief commander in Wana, has so far refused to halt action against Uzbeks, though some of his comrades have sided with Uzbek militants, sources said.

Sources said that Siraj Haqqani, the son of veteran Afghan commander and Taliban leader Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani, had reached Wana to intervene and stop the fighting.

One official told IOL that some tribal elders, who until now were too scared to meet authorities because of fear of being targeted by Uzbeks and local militants, were now re-establishing contacts.

"Things are taking a positive turn now."

Though army helicopter gunships continued to hover over the rugged tribal belt, Islamabad has decided not to intervene.

"The government has chosen to take a back-seat because any perceived support to tribesmen can discredit the whole campaign," said Khan.

"Pakistan army is not involved in the ongoing clashes," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told reporters.

He insisted that the tribal uprising against foreign militants was a testimony to the government's "successful" policies in the tribal region.

"The tribesmen's reaction proves that the government's stand on presence of foreign militants in the region was right."

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has recently told Congress that to defeat the extremists in the border belt it was important to separate the local population from the militant groups.

"You have to separate the population from the foreign fighters. And you do that through fighting - the Pakistani army fighting them, through the tribesmen fighting them. But you also do that by trying to improve the economic base and the modernization of that region."