The tribal anger against President General Pervez Musharraf, which was already running high after the Pakistan Army's commando raid into the Lal Masjid in Islamabad from July 10 to13, 2007, has further escalated in the wake of the air strikes carried out by the Pakistan Air Force on suspected terrorists in the Mir Ali area of North Waziristan before the celebration of the Id festivities. The Pakistan Army claimed to have killed about 200 militants in the attacks carried out by helicopter gunships and military aircraft. It claimed that while 150 of them were the local militants who had formed a local version of theTaliban, 25 were Uzbeks and the remaining 25 were Afghan Pashtuns, Tajiks and Arabs.
Local tribal leaders have strongly refuted these claims and asserted that all those killed were innocent civilians, including many women and children. The Army operations, which followed the kidnapping of over 300 Army andpara-military personnel by the militants, led to large-scale displacement of internal refugees from North Waziristan to the adjoining areas of the North-West Frontier Province(NWFP). Every year, just before Id tribals from the FATA working or studying in other parts of Pakistan go on leave to their towns and villages for a family reunion at the time of the Id festivities. This year, there were no family reunions and those living in the Mir Ali and Miranshah areas of North Waziristan refrained from celebrating Id in protest against the Army action and the air strikes,which led to large exodus of people and the cancellation of the traditional family reunions.
The prayer meetings in the mosques of North and South Waziristan saw strong statements not only againstGen.Musharraf, but also against Mrs.Benazir Bhutto for supporting the General and the US. She was denounced as apostate because of her alleged collusion with them.
In the meanwhile, taking advantage of the resignation of the coalition governmentof the Islamic fundamentalist parties in the NWFP, which has led to the formation of a caretakergovernment headed by an ex-bureaucrat, the Pakistan Army has launched a special operation in the Swat area, which wasvirtually under the control of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM), which is headed by MullahFazlullah, popularly known as Maulana FM Radio. He makes broadcasts from an FM radio station installed in his mosque at ImamDheri, a village in the Swat district. He is the son-in-law of Mulla Sufi Mohammad, theprevious head of the TNSM, who is in the custody of the Pakistani authorities since 2002, when the TNSM was banned for supporting Al Qaeda and theTaliban.
Taking advantage of the preoccupation of the Army in South and North Waziristan and with the complicity of the previousgovernment of the fundamentalist coalition in Peshawar, Fazlullah raised his own force and assumed control of the Swat valley and started imposing Islamic laws and punishments on the local people.
Disregarding threats of retaliation by him, the Musharraf government has sent an estimated 2,500para-military troops into the area to arrest him, neutralise his force and re-establish the writ of thestate. A vehicle carrying para-military personnel into the area for laying a siege on the hide-out of Fazlullah at Imam Dheri was blown up on October 25,2007, at a place calledMingora, about 15 kms from Imam Dheri, killing 20 members of the Frontier Constabulary and some civilians.Fazlullah, who has denied any responsibility for the explosion, has reportedly fled from the area. There have been clashes between his followers and thepara-military forces, which are still continuing.
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B. Raman is Additional Secretary (retd), Cabinet Secretariat, Govt. of India, New Delhi, and, presently, Director, Institute For Topical Studies, Chennai.
