(To be read in continuation of my earlier article, UzbeksUnder Attack In South Waziristan)
Violent clashes continue to take place between long-time Uzbek settlers and land-owners and the Darikhel and Trojkhel sub-tribes of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe in the Ahmadzai Wazir inhabited areas of South Waziristan in theFederally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan. The Uzbeks continue to be supported by the Yargulkhel sub-tribe in their fight against the Darikhels andTrojkhels.
Journalists do not enjoy easy access to the areas where the fighting has been taking place. It has also been difficult to communicate with the sources in these areas. Most of the information flowing out of these areas has been coming from Ministers and officials of thegovernment of Pakistan. They have been over-estimating the casualties inflicted on the Uzbeks by the sub-tribes, which have risen against them.government sources have claimed that 220 foreigners-- the majority of them Uzbeks plus someTajiks--have been killed in fresh clashes between April 2 and 6, 2007, but only 16 dead bodies have been found.
One had seen this practice of over-estimating the casualties suffered by jihadis in the past too when the Pakistan Army had undertaken an operation against the Uzbeks and others in the South Waziristan area in 2004. The Army used to give out highly inflated figures of fatalities inflicted by it on the foreign jihadis, but very few dead bodies were recovered. When asked about it, the Army would say that the Uzbeks and other foreigners had taken away the dead bodies of those killed. When asked how then did they estimate the number of fatalities, they would reply that they got the figures from monitored communication intercepts. In the past, the Army had also claimed to have captured a large number of Uzbeks, but none of them was produced before the media. Nor were they brought to trial. Similarly, in respect of the present clashes too, officials of thegovernment of Pakistan have been claiming that dozens of Uzbeks have been captured by the Ahmadzai Wazirs, but none of them has been produced before the media.
Spokesmen of the Pakistan Army have been projecting the attacks on the Uzbeks by some of the tribals in South Waziristan as indicating the success of the counter-terrorism strategy followed by Gen. PervezMusharraf--namely, encouraging the residents of the tribal areas to act against the terrorists instead of the Army getting involved in it as it used to do in the past. A careful examination of the limited media and source reports emanating from these areas indicate that the explanation is much more complex and cannot be seen merely in terms of the so-called war against the remnants of Al Qaeda, the Taliban, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and other jihadis operating from these areas. The present clashes are to be seen more in terms of a sons of the soil vs foreign land usurpers conflict than in terms of the war against terrorism.
The tribals have been angry against the Uzbeks not just because they are indulging in acts of terrorism, but even more because over the years they have been usurping the land of the tribals of the area and making them landless labourers in their own homeland. Some of the Uzbeks have also been accused of not respecting the traditions and customs of the tribal society and of killing a large number of Turkman settlers in South Waziristan. They are also accused of killing Saiful Adil alias Saiful Asad, an Arab member of Al Qaeda.Similar allegations are also being levelled against the Tajiks living in the area. There are no such allegations against the Arabs, the Chechens and the Uighurs. The reports and statements emanating from the area are replete with references to "good Uzbeks" and "bad Uzbeks" and "Uzbeks of Mazar-e-Sharif" and "Uzbeks of Uzbekistan." Similarly, there are references to the "Uzbeks of Rashid Dostum" and "Uzbeks of the IMU". The struggle being waged by the tribals is being projected in some reports as targeting only the "bad Uzbeks" and not all Uzbeks. By bad Uzbeks, they seem to be referring to the followers of Dostum, who deserted from Najibullah's army in 1991-92 and crossed over into the FATA, as well as to the followers of an Uzbek leader named QariTahir.
The tribals attacking the Uzbeks say that the behaviour of the Arab followers of Al Qaeda towards them has been impeccable. They respect the traditions and customs of the local tribal society and have not tried to displace the locals from their land by using their money power to purchase their land. The Chechens and the Uighurs have also been behaving properly. Only some of the Uzbeks have been trying to lord it over the local tribals. The behaviour of these Uzbeks towards the local tribals has been compared to that of the Jewish settlers towards the Palestinian sons of the soil in the West Bank of the Jordan river.
As mentioned in my 2004article, there were also reports about the presence of many Uzbek women in South Waziristan. Many of them are the wives of the local Pushtuns, Chechens and Arabs. It is not known how and when they came there. Some reports allege that in addition to heroin smuggling, the IMU also indulges in human traffiking, particularly of women. This has also added to the local anger against the Uzbeks.
Apparently embarrassed by the anger against the Uzbeks, the Neo Taliban and Al Qaeda have maintained a neutral attitude in the conflict lest any indication of support to the "bad Uzbeks" spoil their cordial relations with the localtribals.
In an interesting article, the Dawn of Karachi of April 5,2007, stated as follows:
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"Three things happened in the past one year or so that sealed the Uzbeks’ fate. One, the Taliban and their supporters in Waziristan had begun to realise that Uzbeks were turning into a liability because of their alleged involvement in target-killings. The most prominent name to come up was that of Saiful Asad. Two, the Uzbek militants had allied themselves with militant commanders led by deposed commander, Maulvi Omar, who was using their muscle as a counterweight to Maulvi Nazir -- a key factor why the Taliban threw their weight behind their nominee to ward off any threat against him.Three and most importantly, there was a tribal dimension to the brewing conflict. Omar came from the all-powerful Yargulkhel sub-clan of Ahmadzai Wazir tribe and so were Haji Sharif and his brother, Noor Islam. Maulvi Nazir was from the Ghulamkhel sub-clan, the weakest group and one that had little influence within the tribal hierarchy. This intra-tribal rivalry had a significant bearing on subsequent developments.
"Moreover, the Uzbeks, particularly the ones led by Qari Tahir, were seen as a liability in view of their reluctance to fight the Taliban’s `jihad’ against the US forces in Afghanistan. The tribal militants soon realised this group was more interested in fighting Pakistan on its own turf. The argument used by the Uzbeks was that `jihad against hypocrites’ takes precedence over `jihad against infidels’ – an allusion to Pakistan’s collaboration with the US in the `war on terror. Twice late last year, Maulvi Nazir held a meeting of his shura of militant commanders to decide the fate of unruly Uzbeks and on both the occasions, Qari Usman Jan, who represented Yaldashev’s faction, agreed to submit to the tribal command. What however, served as the tipping point in this Uzbek-local stand-off that was continuing for a year, was the murder of a widely respected Saudi, Sheikh Asadullah, on March 13. Asadullah, in his mid-50s, was, according to somegovernment officials, the moneybag in the entire tribal belt. He had succeeded Ahmad Saeed Abdur Rehman Khaddar Al Canadi, an Egyptian-born Canadian known for being a conduit for finances to Al Qaeda affiliates. He was killed in a military action in Angor Adda, near the Pakistan-Afghan border, in Oct 2004. Asadullah, who was taking money to the widow of yet another unidentified foreign militant also killed by Uzbeks, was ambushed to death on the way. His tribal companion, an associate of Maulvi Nazir, put the blame on the Uzbek militants.
"Two weeks before this incident, a pro-government tribal elder who had twice escaped attempts on his life by Uzbeks, decided to take on the central Asian fighters with the help of his Darikhel tribesmen. Maulvi Nazir, who had remained neutral hitherto, decided to jump into the fray .For the first time since the tribal region was beset by militancy in 2002, tribal militant commanders, who had until now been fighting the Pakistan Army, found themselves training their guns at each other. The larger group, led by Maulvi Omar, supported the Uzbeks. The smaller one, led by Commander Nazir, opposed the Uzbeks. .Therefore, all that is happening has little to do with thegovernment’s ingenuity – a government that has shown remarkable ignorance of tribal history. Onegovernment official admitted it had fallen into the government’s lap like a ripe fruit. What does the present conflict mean? One needs to understand that it is an Uzbek-only tribal campaign, targeting the so-called `Bad Uzbeks’. The `Good Uzbek’ are clearly not the target. The same goes for other foreign militants.It is clear that the `bad Uzbeks’ have few choices. They will either have to leave the Wana region as they are no longer welcome or fight the last battle and die. They had spurned a Taliban offer earlier to resettle in areas under their control in Helmand and Zabul, fearing they would become sitting ducks.
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"Indications are that the first round of Uzbek-hunting would be followed by bloody intra-tribal feuds. Tribesmen, who lost nearly two hundred of their near and dear ones in targeted-killings to Uzbeks, would henceforth be hunting for their tribal collaborators."
B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
