Shifting Cultivation

It was one slice of the subcontinent the British were loath to enter. And it is precisely this territory that has compelled the US to pull apart India and Pakistan from mauling each other. Welcome to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), inhospitable and inaccessible, where Pakistani troops and US operatives are pursuing Al Qaeda and Taliban militants who seem to have just melted away into its wilderness.

The tribal areas are located on the Pakistan side of the 2,400-km-long Durand Line that separates this country from Afghanistan. Comprising a total population of 5.7 million, the FATA has seven distinct areas—Khyber, Kurram, Orakzai, Mohmand, Bajaur, North Waziristan and South Waziristan—inhabited by Pashtoon tribes. The British created the tribal areas as a buffer between undivided India and Afghanistan, granting administrative autonomy and giving special privileges to Maliks, or tribal elders, in return for services such as maintenance of peace and keeping the Khyber Pass open. This system continued under independent Pakistan: the government refrained from establishing direct rule, universal adult franchise was extended here as late as 1997 and political parties remain outlawed.

Cracks in the FATA's insulated existence appeared last December as the US relentlessly bombed Tora Bora in the Spinghar (White Mountains), hoping to flush out Al Qaeda recruits and nab Osama bin Laden, who was reportedly sighted here. Since the Spinghar borders Kurram and Khyber, there was speculation that bin Laden could have escaped into the contiguous Pakistani territory. The Americans then demanded that Islamabad plug escape routes from the Spinghar into Kurram and Khyber.

Pakistan relented, and deployed its military in the tribal agencies. But it wasn't easy for them to enter the FATA. Through the classic carrot and stick approach, the government promised special development funds for the area and warned them of possible US aerial strikes to dissuade the Maliks from offering refuge to fleeing militants. Subsequently, the deployment was extended to the North and South Waziristan tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan's Paktia, Paktika and Khost provinces, where the US and allied forces were conducting combing operations in March.

The importance of Pakistani deployment in America's war against terror explains why Washington has shown great alacrity in intervening in the Indo-Pak crisis. Wary of operating alone in the FATA due to the fear of provoking religiously-inclined Pashtoon tribes, Washington was alarmed at Pakistan's threat last week of transferring troops to its border with India—and so watch its war against terror thrown into disarray.

But the hunt for bin Laden and his men has largely proved futile. Despite the widespread belief that they have found sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas, it is hard to locate their hideouts given the wilderness and the administrative hurdles springing from the semi-autonomous status of the areas. The US' only significant success has been away from the FATA, in Faisalabad town of Punjab, where American telecom operatives intercepted phone and e-mail exchanges to capture over 50 Al Qaeda suspects, including bin Laden's close aide Abu Zubaida, in early April. This inspired the US to press Islamabad for allowing a larger number of Americans to operate in the tribal areas.

Their arrival there early last month triggered protests and three rocket attacks on a vocational college in Miramshah, North Waziristan, where the Americans had been put up. Then US and Pakistani forces were conducting joint operations. They raided a madrassa run by former Afghan mujahideen and Taliban leader Mulla Jalaluddin Haqqani near Miramshah.But the brief arrest of certain Pakistani clergymen in the tribal areas inflamed sentiments.

Subsequently, an informal arrangement was worked out and religious scholars and tribal elders agreed to let Pakistani soldiers search seminaries for suspects. Simultaneously, though, they announced punishments to local tribesmen found helping the US, threatening them with a fine of Pakistani

Rs 50 lakh, demolition of their houses and expulsion from the tribal areas. Now US telecom experts identify suspected Al Qaeda hideouts which the Pakistanis then raid.

Musharraf has succeeded till now to keep the presence of Americans in the FATA to a minimum. With last week's thaw in the Indo-Pak crisis, Musharraf will have to show better results, or suffer the ignominy of allowing greater US presence in the tribal areas. But that could just about throw the FATA into turmoil.