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September 6, 2006

Pakistan Lets Tribal Chiefs Keep Control Along Border

By ISMAIL KHAN and CARLOTTA GALL

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Sept. 5 — The central government and tribal elders signed a peace agreement on Tuesday that will allow militants to operate freely in one of Pakistan’s most restive border areas in return for a pledge to halt attacks and infiltration into Afghanistan.

The deal is widely viewed as a face-saving retreat for the Pakistani Army, which has taken a heavy battering at the hands of the mountain tribesmen and militants, who are allied with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. But the government may have in effect ceded the militants a sanctuary in the area, called North Waziristan.

In one of the most obvious capitulations since it began its campaign to rout foreign fighters from the area, the government said foreigners would be allowed to stay if they respected the law and the peace agreement. Osama bin Laden and other leaders of Al Qaeda are believed to be among the foreigners who have taken refuge in the area.

The agreement, reached a day before a visit by President Pervez Musharraf to Afghanistan, will be presented by the government as proof of Pakistan’s effort to deal with militancy and terrorism. Relations with President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan have been strained this year as the insurgency in southern and eastern Afghanistan has swelled.

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The deal was brokered by a grand tribal jirga, or assembly, set up by the governor of the North-West Frontier Province on July 20, after the militants declared a unilateral ceasefire. Turning to a jirga was an admission by the government that it could not win control of the region militarily.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/06/world/asia/06afghan.html?ref=world

Posted on Fri, Sep. 01, 2006

Truces fueling resurgence of Taliban, critics say

By Jonathan S. Landay
McClatchy Newspapers

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Pakistani military is striking truces with Islamic separatists along the country's border with Afghanistan, freeing Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling U.S.-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan.

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The fighting in Afghanistan is the bloodiest since U.S. forces drove the Taliban from power after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Many of the movement's top leaders, along with Osama bin Laden and many of his followers, escaped to Pakistan and have never been caught.

The Pakistani regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been negotiating truces - with the Bush administration's encouragement - with Islamic separatists in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, mountainous tribal areas along the Afghan border where U.S. officials think bin Laden may be hiding.

In return, Pakistani officials are promising to restrict the country's troops in the area to major bases and towns and to pour huge amounts of aid - much of it from the United States and other nations - into the destitute region, according to American officials.

But as the truces take hold, separatists have been crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, according to Western and Afghan officials.

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The separatists and the Taliban are Pashtuns, the ethnic group that dominates Afghanistan and Pakistan's tribal region. It's unclear whether the flow is an unintended consequence of the truces or is being ignored - or encouraged - by Musharraf's regime as part of the price for peace with the separatists.

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http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/news/columnists/jonathan_s_landay/15419933.htm?source=rss&channel=krwashington_jonathan_s_landay