The Pakistan army has driven back the Taliban from one part of Waziristan but it's not clear if it means peace or war, writes Graham Usher in Spinkai This small town in South Waziristan is part of a tribal enclave on Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan. Or rather it was. Today it is one of several abandoned villages reduced to mud-walled ruins of blitzed homes, stores and hospitals. In its own way it is a testament to all that is wrong in the war for and against militant Islam, in Pakistan and beyond. Several thousand Pakistani soldiers entered Spinkai in January. Their task was to oust tribal leader and self-proclaimed emir of the Pakistan Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud. His fighters had overrun a military fort nearby and "declared war on Pakistan", says Major General Tariq Khan, army commander responsible for the area. The war consisted not only in the Taliban enforcing its own ruthless strain of Islamic rule. Spinkai and other towns served as the hub and armoury for suicide and other attacks on the army and civilians across Pakistan, including, say some, the bomb that killed Benazir Bhutto and 20 others in Rawalpindi on 27 December. The incursion on 21 January was the first time the Pakistan army had ever set foot in Spinkai, part of a British trade made at independence in which the army kept control of the roads while indigenous tribes like the Mehsuds were given autonomy over the interior. What the soldiers found in their undiscovered country astounded them. Spinkai wasn't merely a redoubt but "a semi-autonomous state," says General Khan. The Taliban had replaced state institutions with a parallel government, legal and revenue system. In four days of fighting the army faced not only well armed fighters but an elaborate trench system cut by heavy duty diggers and bunkers with concrete overheads drilled into the mountains. On entering the town they found schools converted into what General Khan called "nurseries for preparing suicide bombers", some as young as nine. One of these was in the grounds of Spinkai hospital. There is a small mosque and several clay-built rooms. Nothing remains of its previous incarnation save a rash of bullet marks on the walls and wiring, cable and ball bearings strewn across the floor. "We found 15 prepared suicide jackets here and another 15 waiting to be dispatched," says Brigadier Ali Abbas, standing in one of the rooms. It's difficult to imagine a "factory for turning 9-12 year-old boys into suicide bombers" but videos picked up near the site give an idea. One shows a classroom of boys listening to a long haired commander, white bandanas with Quranic script wrapped around their foreheads. Another shows two youths holding down a soldier, bound and blindfolded, while a third slits his throat. He holds the severed head before the camera like a trophy. Another shows a boy clutching a revolver too heavy for him before pumping bullets into the head of another bound soldier. The soldier slumps. The boy smiles. "We recovered 52 children," says General Khan. "We didn't know how to handle them so we sent them to professionals. They were asked what they wanted to be when they grew up. Most of them said a pilot or a doctor. Clearly there's a serious disconnect here. During the operation women came of mountain caves screaming that we should kill the miscreants who'd been kidnapping their children". Many local tribesmen loathed the Taliban's pathological form of governance. Others recognised it. This can be seen by the speed in which Spinkai's 3,000 residents fled on 21 January. Their homes have uncollected bedding, a suitcase packed but discarded, even a freezer. One hovel-like kitchen has a pot of rice, still to be cooked on a stove. Complicity can also be seen in the extent of devastation wrought on the village. Some of the compounds have clearly been damaged by gunfire. But many others have been razed to the ground by explosives and army bulldozers. Punishment for collaboration with the Taliban, says Brigadier Abbas. "We have to make the tribes take collective responsibility for their village and not harbour militants." Another soldier says such actions brought peace. "Baitullah Mehsud was forced to come to the table because of the collective punishment. The locals put pressure on him to negotiate." Negotiations with the tribes and, through them, the Taliban, have been happening since Pakistan's new government took office in March. It has brought fruit. Bruised by the army's offensive the Taliban has observed a ceasefire in South Waziristan for a month. There have been prisoner exchanges in which more than 50 POWs were freed, including the Pakistan ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, abducted in February. But the negotiations are "tricky", says an army officer who refused to be attributed. "There are other parties than the tribes and government involved." Like Washington. It has expressed disquiet about the peace process, fearing, as in past accords, the Taliban and Al-Qaeda may use the hiatus to regroup and rearm. The Americans also fear peace in Waziristan will mean war in Afghanistan, as the Taliban turn their sights from the Pakistan army to American, British, Canadian and Dutch NATO soldiers in Helmand and the other Afghan provinces. Coincidentally or otherwise in April, NATO reported a threefold increase in cross border infiltration into Afghanistan from Pakistan. It's an influx the US is unlikely to accept. On 15 May a US pilotless drone rocketed a house in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal agency on the Afghan border, killing 11. The house allegedly belonged to Maulvi Obaidullah, a Taliban commander, freed in the prisoner exchange. In a rare rebuke Pakistan Prime Minister Youssef Raza Gilani denounced NATO's violation of Pakistan territory as "absolutely wrong". The Taliban response was less rare. A teenage suicide bomber killed 13, including five soldiers, outside an army bakery in Mardan in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. "The Mardan attack was a reaction to Bajour," said Taliban spokesman Maulvi Omar on 18 May. In Spinkai army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas says American attacks across the border are "completely counterproductive" to Pakistan's fight against the Taliban. "It doesn't help any side, neither the Pakistan government nor the NATO coalition. And it makes it very difficult to explain to the people the purpose of our presence here." He is standing in Spinkai village, beneath an arching sycamore tree. With the Taliban ousted, its people can return home, he says. None have done so. They have learned from experience not to mistake deserted streets, silent guns and quiet factories for peace. They also look to the skies.
