Clashes Kill 160 in Northwest Pakistan
Pastor Dale Morgan
Clashes Kill 160 in Northwest Pakistan
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By MOHAMMED RIAZ
The Associated Press
Friday, March 23, 2007; 5:40 AM
PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Clashes between Pakistani tribesmen and foreign
militants near the Afghan border this week have left up to 160 people
dead, including about 130 Uzbek and Chechen fighters, the provincial
governor said Friday.
Ali Mohammed Jan Aurakzai, the top government official in North West
Frontier Province, said between 25 and 30 tribesmen also had died in
fighting that started Monday in the South Waziristan tribal region and
was continuing Friday.
The government says the bloodletting shows the success of its decision
to use local tribesmen to root out foreign militants linked to al-Qaida.
However, experts say it also exposes authorities' lack of control of a
region also used by the Taliban to support attacks in Afghanistan.
Aurakzai, a retired Pakistani army general, said tribal militants had
captured another 63 foreigners and were hunting 200 more who had
scattered into the area's mountains.
"Our forces are not involved. Local tribesmen are not allowing
foreigners to live in their areas," he told reporters at his British
colonial-era residence in the regional capital, Peshawar.
The death toll from the fighting in several towns in South Waziristan
has risen rapidly, and had stood at about 135 on Thursday. Officials say
the two sides have observed brief truces to allow for the burial of
dead, but that attempts by local militant leaders to broker an agreement
to halt the fighting had failed.
Hundreds of Central Asian and Arab militants linked to al-Qaida fled to
this semiautonomous region after the collapse of the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan and forged alliances with local tribes. Other Uzbek
Islamists opposed to the regime of President Islam Karimov in their
homeland have reportedly since joined them from Uzbekistan.
Aurakzai said that Tahir Yuldash, the leader of the Islamic Movement of
Uzbekistan, a militant opposition group, was in the area when fighting
started but would not say what had happened to him.
As part of its support of the U.S.-led war on terror, Pakistan launched
military operations in 2004 to wipe the foreign militants out. They
succeeded in busting camps used by al-Qaida but suffered hundreds of
casualties and failed to expel the foreign fighters.
The military said at the time that Yuldash, one of Uzbekistan's most
wanted men, was wounded but escaped during a raid on a suspected
al-Qaida camp near Wana, South Waziristan's main town.
More recently, Pakistan has cut deals with pro-Taliban militants and
urged local tribal elders to police the region themselves.
That has sparked concern that Taliban and other militants now have freer
rein to launch crossborder attacks into Afghanistan on U.S. and NATO
forces. American officials are also worried it has allowed al-Qaida to
regroup.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Wednesday that the
fighting between tribal groups and foreign fighters could help defeat
extremists.
Some analysts, however, say militants with links to Taliban and al-Qaida
are involved on both sides of the current conflict, which also pits
local tribes against each other, and that blood feuds could deepen
insecurity in a region viewed as a possible hiding place for Osama bin
Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri.