The Omens From South Waziristan

Following persistent and widespread speculation in the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and theFederally-Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan about a bloody clash between US and Pakistani forcesnear the border of Afghanistan with the FATA, reports from Washington DC quoted the Pentagon as havingconfirmed that  a clash, but of a minor nature, did take place on December 29, 2002, near the Afghanvillage of  Sikhin in which two Pakistanis were killed and an American was injured. During the clash, anAmerican F-16 dropped a bomb hitting a madrasa (Muslim religious school) in the South Waziristan area of theFATA in Pakistani territory.

From the welter of reports on the incident coming from the NWFP and the FATA, it has been possible toreconstruct the following: Unidentified elements, suspected to be from Al Qaeda or the Taliban or both, openedfire on a US patrol near the Pakistan border in the Paktika province of Afghanistan last week. In  theensuing exchange of fire, the US patrol killed one Said Muhammad, a resident of Wana, headquarters of the  South Waziristan Agency. 

Hundreds of people shouting anti-US and anti-Musharraf slogans, including some Islamic fundamentalistmembers of the newly-elected NWFP Legislative Assembly, attended his funeral at Wana.On December 29, 2002,(some reports say it was actually on December 30) another US patrol in the Afghan territory adjoining the FATAcame under fire from some elements in Pakistani territory. The firing stopped after a while. The head of theUS patrol asked the head of a Pakistani para-military unit called the Waziristan Scouts, which consistslargely of Pashtun tribals recruited in the area many of whom are related to the members of the Taliban andwhich is  responsible for security in the affected area, to trace those who had fired on the US patroland hand them over to the US patrol for interrogation.

The head of the Pakistani unit denied any knowledge of the identity of those responsible or theirwhereabouts. The Waziristan Scouts allege that thereupon the US patrol tried to enter Pakistani territory tosearch for the assailants. The South Waziristan Scouts resisted this by opening fire on the US patrol. Therewas a heavy exchange of fire during which the South Waziristan Scouts claim to have killed at least sevenAmericans, but fatal American casualties have not been admitted by the US authorities. Thwarted in itsattempts to arrest the assailants,  the US patrol called for an air strike. US  helicopter gunshipsdropped three bombs on a double-story madrassa-cum-mosque complex at a place called Angoor Adda  run by by Maulana Muhammad Hassan, of the  Taliban, who is alleged to be related to  Said Muhammad.  Only two of the bombs struck the madrassa severely damaging it, while the third fell in an empty plot ofground nearby.  According to the South Waziristan Scouts, there was nobody in the madrassa complex andhence the US bombing was uncalled for.

A statement on the incident issued by the US Army headquarters at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan saidthat an American soldier was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with a Pakistani border patrol, prompting theUS to drop a bomb on the border area.  it claimed that the American was part of a unit conducting aroutine mission with Pakistani forces along the Afghan border when a disagreement appeared to break out. Itadded: "A Pakistani border scout opened fire with a G3 rifle after the US patrol asked him to return tothe Pakistan side of the border.  That individual and several others retreated to a nearby structure.Close air support was requested and one 500-lb bomb was dropped on the target area.  We are working withthe Pakistanis for an accurate battlefield damage assessment from the incident."

According to another  version given by Maj. Stephen Clutter, an Afghanistan-based spokesman of the USArmy, the incident occurred on December 29, 2002, near the Afghan town of Sikhin along the border withPakistan. A US F-16 fighter attacked a building after a man who injured a US soldier ran inside it. Accordingto him, American and Pakistani troops were working together at the time to blow up a cache of munitions, whenthe shooter was told to leave the area. Instead, he crouched and began firing. Maj. Clutter said the attackermight have been impersonating a Pakistani border guard. "I can't speculate what was in his mind."However, Pakistani officials have admitted that the attacker belonged to the South Waziristan Scouts.Maj.Clutter added: "Pakistan has been a loyal ally and I'm sure they're just as concerned about (thisincident) as we are, if in fact he (the attacker) was a member of their force."

Captain Alaine Cramer, another US Army spokesperson, claimed that  the bomb had landed within Afghanterritory, about  300 metres from a Pakistani border post.Maj.Gen.Rashid Quereshi, the Islamabad-basedspokesman of Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani military dictator, also claimed that the US plane attacked atarget in Afghan and not Pakistani territory.

The incident has caused considerable anger against the US and Musharraf in the Pashtun tribal belt. On January 1, 2002, the NWFP Legislative Assembly where anti-US and pro-bin Laden and pro-Taliban  members of the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the six-party fundamentalist coalition, are in a majority,passed unanimously a resolution condemning the alleged US bombing of a madrasa-cum-mosque  in Pakistaniterritory.The Jamaat-e-Islami also has condemned it.

Before the elections on October 10, 2002, Musharraf, in his anxiety to break Benazir Bhutto's PakistanPeople's Party (PPP) in the NWFP, caused a split in the PPP and withdrew the cases under the anti-terrorismact and other laws against many Islamic fundamentalist elements in the province to enable them to contest theelections. The result: The Islamic fundamentalist elements, many of them relatives of the Taliban leaders andcadres, managed to win a majority and are now in power in this area which is vital for the US war against theTaliban and Al Qaeda. It has been reported that since the Cabinet of the fundamentalist parties was sworn in,many members of Al Qaeda and the Taliban, who had taken shelter in Karachi, have drifted back to the NWFP andtaken shelter in the madrasas there.

The FATA is directly administered by Islamabad and the fundamentalist Government now in power in Peshawardoes not have control over the administration there, but there too the fundamentalist parties have a strongpresence. The Waziristan area has seen intense searches by the Pakistani security forces, assisted by expertsfrom the USA's National Security Agency (NSA) and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), since the beginningof last year since many of the fleeing Al Qaeda, Taliban, Chechen and Uzbeck terrorists had taken shelterthere. 

While the Taliban and Al Qaeda elements dispersed to other parts of Pakistan, including Karachi, theChechen and the Uzbeck elements, many of them married to Pashtun women, have stayed put there, merged in thelocal population and have been harassing the US forces on the Afghan side of the border.  They haverecently been joined by the Pashtun members of Gulbuddin Heckmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami. 

(The writer is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, and, presently,Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai)