Recent fighting between tribesmen and foreign militants has been presented by the Pakistani government as a vindication of its strategy in the Pakistan-Afghan border regions. The reality is more complex, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad For the last month Pakistan's western tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have been in flames. Army spokesmen say hundreds have been killed and thousands displaced in the South Waziristan tribal agency in running battles between local Pashtun tribesmen and foreign Islamic militants who had found sanctuary in Pakistan after the Taliban's ousting from Afghanistan in 2001. Despite the carnage, the spokesmen have championed the violence as a vindication of the government's policy of striking peace deals with tribesmen rather than waging war against the Taliban. "The fighting validates our counter-terror strategy," says a Pakistani security official. "We want the tribal leaders to evict Al-Qaeda and the Taliban on their own, without the Pakistani army". Is that what's happening? South Waziristan is a remote, mountainous region where hard information is difficult to come by. Mobile phones don't work and, since February, landlines have been severed due to a robbery in the agency's telephone exchange. More ominously, since a peace deal was signed between the government and pro-Taliban tribesmen in April 2004, a campaign of intimidation has been waged against journalists, usually by the Taliban but occasionally by Pakistan's intelligence forces, whose agents are everywhere in the tribal areas. Facts about the recent fighting have come in fragments. The picture assembled is not quite the same as that painted by the government. What few dispute is that relations have soured between locals and the foreign fighters, especially Uzbeks belonging to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). Welcomed in 2001 as "guests", in recent years the foreigners have had to pay for their keep in the tribal areas. For the wealthier Arabs -- especially those with ties to Al-Qaeda -- this has meant extortionate amounts of cash paid to tribal protectors, suppliers and government officials. For their poorer Uzbek cousins -- like the IMU -- it has meant rent. "The IMU essentially became hired guns or different tribal leaders," says a source. For a culture as xenophobic as the Pashtun, such intervention has caused simmering resentment. It exploded on 6 March, after a tribal elder was nearly killed by IMU gunmen. It was this that sparked the present violence, says sources. But the current "tribal uprising" is not against all foreigners. It appears to be confined to the IMU. Other aliens -- Arabs, Chechens, Central Asians and Chinese -- have been left untouched or been the targets of the Uzbeks. For example, it was the killing by the IMU of Sheik Asadullah on 13 March that tipped skirmishes with the tribesmen into war. Asadullah was a Saudi and said to be the main financier for the Araba Al-Qaeda allied groups in the tribal areas. He was also a lucrative source of trade and patronage for the tribes. Nor are all the local tribesmen local or tribesmen. Sources say those fighting the IMU have had their ranks swelled by Pakistan jihadist groups brought in from Kashmir. Local tribal levies have been raised less by the calls of jihad and Pashtun loyalty than by swathes of government cash. And the army has quietly supplied the tribesmen with arms, equipment and men. Troops have also moved into South Waziristan to hold areas retaken by the tribesmen. Nor can the current conflict be seen as against the Taliban, the strongest political force in the tribal areas. The anti-IMU tribesmen are led by Mullah Nazir. He was appointed commander of the South Waziristan tribes by the Taliban leadership in November 2006. It was an unpopular decision. Other Taliban leaders in South Waziristan have been fighting alongside the IMU or are "telling everyone that this is an internal war whipped up by the Pakistan army to split the Taliban," says a local. On two occasions senior Afghani Taliban leaders have tried to enter South Waziristan to mediate a truce between tribesmen and the IMU. Both times they were stymied by the army. "Taliban-Pakistan relations are at an all-time low," says the source. What is Pakistan's goal in the tribal areas? Some say the tribal revolt against the Uzbeks is a smokescreen. Although Pakistan has made much of the fact that IMU leader Tahir Yuldashev was "once an aide to Usama bin Laden," so, point out analysts, were "hundreds of others". In fact the IMU appears to have had little contact with Al-Qaeda in the tribal areas and has played a minimal role in the Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan. It is thus a soft target for Pakistan to demonise while leaving the Taliban and Al-Qaeda unharmed. Others say the mobilisation of the tribes is a precursor to a renewed army offensive in the tribal areas, under inordinate US pressure and "against its better judgment," says the source. The military incursions in support of the tribes were the first army actions inside South Waziristan since the 2004 peace agreement. But every previous army offensive has alienated the tribes and strengthened the Taliban. Will that be the fate of the current fighting? The tribal revolt could be "a movement in the right direction," says retired Pakistan General Talat Masood. But it could also "lead to a situation where the militants establish their own control and don't listen to what the government has to say".
