Pakistan Adopting a Tough Old Tactic to Flush Out Qaeda | NY Times

[Ediacara]

Pakistan Adopting a Tough Old Tactic to Flush Out Qaeda
By DAVID ROHDE and ISMAIL KHAN

Published: January 31, 2004


Abdul Majeed Goraya for
The New York Times
Lt. Gen. Syed Iftikhar
Hussain Shah supports
tough methods.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 30 — At the start of the month, Pakistan massed several thousand troops in and around the town of Wana, near the country's mountainous border with Afghanistan. Using a harsh century-old British method, officials handed local tribal elders a list and issued an ultimatum.

If 72 men wanted for sheltering Al Qaeda were not produced, they said, the Pakistani Army would punish the tribe as a group, demolishing houses, withdrawing funds and even detaining tribe members.

Several days later, several thousand tribal elders held a jirga, or council, and agreed to raise a force of their own to find the wanted men. In the last two weeks, the tribes have handed over 42 of them. Tribal members bulldozed and dynamited the homes of eight men who refused to surrender.

The most wanted fugitives, including foreign Qaeda members, remain at large, although as an added incentive, Pakistani officials have promised not to hand over any fugitive Pakistanis to the United States.

More at the New York Times