Jinnah, however, would make the unprecedented move of withdrawing the military garrisons from Waziristan. In a meeting with a grand jirga from the tribes, he assured them that Pakistan would treat them:. With respect given and autonomy maintained, there was a general balance and peace between the centre and periphery. Most importantly, there were clear mechanisms in place, through the tribal structure, for dealing with problems of law and order. This system, by and large, maintained an often tenuous balance between the centre and periphery over the next five decades.
After the American invasion of Afghanistan, President Pervez Musharraf, under pressure from the Americans to capture those fleeing across the border into Waziristan, sent the Pakistan military into the region for the first time since Jinnah had withdrawn it.
On television, Musharraf alluded to the presence of senior al-Qaeda leadership in Waziristan, prompting a full scale invasion in Ultimately, it would be a Pakistani president, not a British viceroy, who would implement the steamroller. It was now the military who was in control in the region, representing government authority for the tribes.
In the difficult terrain and facing stiff resistance, the military quickly became bogged down. What followed was a series of hastily constructed, temporary peace agreements in the region.
After a gun battle with security forces, the students barricaded themselves inside the mosque. Elite Pakistani commandos stormed the ground, killing over a people, including female students.
The Tribal Areas erupted in violence as nearly 70 percent of the students were from the Tribal Areas and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. In the following year, there were 88 bombings across Pakistan, killing 1, people and wounding a further 3, In one incident, the year-old brother of one of the female students killed walked into the Tarbela Ghazi mess, south of Islamabad, and blew himself up, killing 22 commandos who had participated in the Lal Masjid raid.
Largely as a result of the Lal Masjid incident, the TTP was created in December under the leadership of Baitullah Mehsud from the most fearsome clan of the toughest tribe in Waziristan, the Shabi Khel of the Mehsud tribe. A cycle of attacks and counter-attacks began between the Pakistan military and the TTP, which was motivated by tribal revenge. What quickly became apparent from the actions of the TTP was a distinct mutation of the code. Its first targets were the very leaders of their own tribal society, the elders and mullahs.
Entire jirgas were kidnapped and killed , and suicide bombers walked into mosques and detonated their explosives.
No one was spared, not even innocent women and children. Without any mechanisms to control the impulses to revenge, unchecked violence reigned unrelieved by any peace agreements with the Pakistan government. And then the drone was introduced into this chaotic landscape, pouring gasoline on an already out of control forest fire. Amidst the chaos and confusion, it is, however, the innocent tribesmen who suffer on all fronts, pounded by drone strikes and military campaigns one day, and suicide bombers the next.
Some one million people have been displaced from the Tribal Areas because of the violence, including , Mehsud, nearly half of the population. An authoritative survey conducted in the Tribal Areas showed that while 79 percent opposed the actions of the US in Pakistan, 68 percent held negative views about al-Qaeda and 63 percent of the TTP. Half of those surveyed gave priority to education, stable employment, health schemes and reliable electricity.
With the presence of the Taliban groups and the Pakistani military in Waziristan, there is little semblance of stable leadership for the tribes with US drones making a bad situation worse. Besides halting the drone campaign, traditional tribal structures and a neutral civil administration committed to the rule of law need to be returned in order to begin to re-establish peace and stability in this volatile periphery. Only by working through the traditional pillars of leadership and authority can the men of violence be effectively and permanently contained, as one of the authors discovered during his tenure in Waziristan as Political Agent.
Above all, the tribes of the periphery need to be dealt with effectively through maintaining law and order and being granted proper development schemes by their government. Pakistan should look to the example set by Jinnah, the Quaid-e-Azam, in how to positively interact with the tribes of Waziristan as well as the other communities of the periphery.
The government, instead of funding military operations in Waziristan, should be funding education, medical facilities, stable electricity lines and other development projects. When the jihadists fled North Waziristan they left behind the apparatus that had helped keep their movement in power.
Pakistani army officers today jokingly refer to one village, that was home to many senior militant commanders, as the Taliban's Pentagon, and they describe another where militants were trained as the Taliban Sandhurst.
As they moved across North Waziristan, the army found prisons, a media centre hidden under a mosque, bomb-proof tunnels and a huge roadside bomb factory. With hundreds of bags of fertiliser and large blue plastic vats filled with foaming chemicals, the facility turned out thousands of bombs that were used all over Pakistan and Afghanistan. The closure of the roadside bomb factory, and others like it, has made a difference. Last year there were violent jihadist attacks in Pakistan.
That compares with 2, attacks in Across North Waziristan as a whole the army found tons of explosives and more than two million rounds of ammunition. For many years, when it was accused of offering sanctuaries to the Afghan Taliban, Islamabad used to argue that it was unable to prevent militants moving into Afghanistan to launch attacks.
It was impossible, Islamabad said, to control such a long, remote and porous border over which villagers with relatives in both countries moved freely. But now it is faced with the mirror situation - Afghan-based militants carrying out attacks in Pakistan and the army trying to control the border. The army says more than 1, forts have been built and sophisticated American radar equipment installed to monitor cross border movements.
The situation at the border is complicated by the fact that, while Pakistan considers it to be a legitimate international border, Afghanistan has never accepted it as such. The battle for North Waziristan - like those for Mosul and Aleppo - has left widespread destruction. Many homes have been reduced to rubble. There are whole villages where no building has a roof on it.
But he had been determined to return. We love it and I don't care if the facilities aren't there. I will still come back. The army is now building infrastructure to tempt people to return. As well as new roads, there are brand new schools with facilities that rival anything on offer elsewhere in Pakistan. One of the recently constructed and very well equipped schools just outside Miranshah is currently completely empty but has places for 1, children when the families decide to return.
Jihadist violence is not over in Pakistan. The state is not moving against some of the militant groups that concentrate their activities in Kashmir, Afghanistan and India. And Afghan-based militants from the Pakistani Taliban and other groups remain a potent force.
A recent attack on a Sufi shrine in the province of Sindh killed over 80 people. Police in Karachi say they believe the attack was organised by Afghan-based militants.
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