Good news if true.
North Waziristan empties out as foreign fighters flee - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
the army is gonna squeeze the balloon but, unfortunately, looks like the bulge has shifted to the other side of the Pak/AfGhan border. why are they allowed to leave? why has the army been talking about the operation for so long, allowing the bad guys to escape by giving them the extra time they needed for the move.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
Isnt that what always happens before a military operation? Most of the fighters slip off to Afghanistan, and wait out the operation. In the meantime, army bombs empty hideouts, or civilians, claiming them to be terrorists, carpet bombs for 2 months, withdraws, and we celebrate. And then the militants start slipping back.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
the army is gonna squeeze the balloon but, unfortunately, looks like the bulge has shifted to the other side of the Pak/AfGhan border. why are they allowed to leave? why has the army been talking about the operation for so long, allowing the bad guys to escape by giving them the extra time they needed for the move.
The army does not want to carry out the operation, reason being the blowback that is expected. Secondly the borders of fata and Afghanistan are porous, it's almost impossible to man them. The army would prefer that the foreigners leave by themselves.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
Hammer and anvil - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Because there is no anvil to our Hammer. That is why. Its so simple it was used by Alexander the Great. The problem is regardless of the operation we have no anvil. This is exactly what happened in 2001. The Pakistani military is not going to repeat the mistakes of the US government.
Edit: It will be a repeat of the SWAT Operation where once it was started they all ran to Afghanistan and are still there 5 years later.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
The army is trying to prevent the tribals from NWA to flee to Afghanistan, but to no avail. This also shows that its easier to slip into Afghanistan from NWA than to other parts of Pakistan.
Militants, families alike flee North Waziristan in fear of full-scale operation
By AFP/ Reuters
Published: June 13, 2014
****KABUL / MIRAMSHAH: **Hundreds of families have fled from a surge of fighting between government forces and militants into neighbouring Afghanistan, while foreign fighters are also quietly slipping away ahead of a long-rumoured full-scale military offensive in North Waziristan.
**
Pakistani government forces have been launching air strikes against Taliban fighters in North Waziristan near the Afghan border in recent days, after Taliban fighters raided the airport in Karachi late on Sunday.
Missile-firing US drone aircraft have also, for the first time in six months, attacked militants this week in North Waziristan.
**Millions of Afghan civilians have for decades sought shelter in Pakistan to escape war in their homeland but the fighting in Pakistan this week has sparked a rare flow of civilians the other way.
**
“Around 300 Pakistani families have escaped because they are worried about fighting between Pakistani forces and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan,” said Jabar Nahimi, governor of eastern Afghanistan’s Khost province, over the border from northwest Pakistan.
“We have provided aid for 100 of these families and the rest will be helped soon … We have also provided vaccinations, as we are concerned about polio.”
Pakistan is considering a full-scale operation against Taliban fighters in its northwest, which would likely push more villagers across the largely unmarked border into Afghanistan.
**Response to airport attack
**
The exodus from the district on the Afghan border began in late May following air strikes, locals told AFP, but it has been hastened by the Taliban’s all-night siege of Karachi airport, which all but destroyed a tentative peace process.
As pressure builds for a fuller response to the airport assault, which was joined by militants from Uzbekistan, residents and officials in the district’s main town of Miramshah said the majority of foreign and local fighters had already left.
“Most of them have gone deep into the mountains towards the Afghan border,” a senior security official told AFP.
Locals said militant groups were also seen escaping from villages that are a known hub of the Haqqani network.
Rumours of a ground offensive in North Waziristan have abounded for years. But authorities have held back from a final push — possibly fearing the blowback in major cities of the country.
**However, the sheer numbers of people leaving, some 60,000, according to official estimates, since late May, suggest that this time might be different.
**
**Foreign fighters
**
Residents saw foreign militants leaving the Machis Camp and Data Khel village near Miramshah, as well as the villages of Musaki, Hurmaz, Hesso Khel and Api.
The fighters included Chechens, Uzbeks, Turkmen, Tajiks and Uighurs, residents and officials said.
They arrived during the early 2000s, lured by the fiery rhetoric of Osama bin Laden and the chance to fight “infidel” forces in Afghanistan.
Married into the local population, some have erected mud houses in small villages among the area’s rugged mountains.
Others “have rented houses and rooms here but they have now left towards the Afghan border,” a grocery shop owner in Miramshah bazaar told AFP.
**Another resident in Miramshah estimated that more than 80% of local and foreign fighters have left North Waziristan.
**
The migrations began on May 22 when Pakistani F-16s pounded suspected targets, killing at least 75, according to the military.
Government representatives also began holding talks two weeks ago with a grand jirga, or council of elders, warning them to hand over foreigners in the area or face severe consequences.
“Tribesmen are against war, they want to solve this conflict with talks and according to tribal traditions and that’s why we have formed a peace jirga,” jirga chief Sher Mohammed told AFP.
Residents said some jirga members last week made announcements from mosque loudspeakers in several villages asking foreign fighters to leave the area.
They also made those under their command hoist Pakistani flags to demonstrate their loyalty and ward off aerial attacks.
**Most areas along the border are not well demarcated, which allows militants to escape into Afghanistan.
**
“They have moved towards Shawal and Birmal,” an intelligence official said, referring to remote villages on the Afghan border.
A second security official said: “It is good that they (fighters) are leaving. We hope that tribesmen will not allow them to come and settle here again.
“In case of any military operation, we will face less resistance,” he added.
Residents said they have seen less activity of the feared Haqqani fighters in recent weeks.
“They are also disappearing, probably they have gone to Khost, Paktia or Paktika,” one resident in Miramshah told AFP, naming Afghan border provinces.
**Imtiaz Gul, a security analyst and long-time observer of the tribal areas, said the jirga and other threats of full-scale action in North Waziristan appeared to be a deliberate strategy on Pakistan’s part.
“This was probably done with a clear intent and that intent was to let them cross the border if they like.
“As long they cross the border – why should it be Pakistan’s headache? It’s then the headache of Afghan and coalition forces,” he said, adding that such movement had occurred in the past when Islamabad had launched operations in other parts of the tribal areas and in Swat Valley.
**
Which is why it was so difficult to engage militants in a fight in the area, as they could eventually return.
**“They keep going backwards and forwards – they can’t plug the entire border whether it’s Pakistani militants or foreign militants.”
**
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
Fleeing tribesmen consider Afghanistan safer - Pakistan - DAWN.COM
**PESHAWAR: Over 6,000 people from Ahmadzai Wazir and other clans have taken refuge in Afghanistan’s Khost province in the aftermath of the recent targeted military action, suggesting the North Waziristan tribesmen consider the neighbouring country safer than their own.
**
**“Keeping in view the long stay and plight of thousands of internally displaced persons of Fata in and off relief camps, I have made my mind to take my family to Afghanistan instead of keeping them in grimy tents in the adjacent Bannu district,” said a tribal elder from Miramshah.
**
Several families have already crossed over to Afghanistan due to uncertainty.
Displaced people from other tribal agencies, including South Waziristan, Orakzai, Kurram and Khyber, have been living in awful conditions in and off camps for seven years.
Over 160,000 displaced families from Fata have been registered in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The Taliban shura headed by Hafiz Gul Bahadur has already asked the local residents to move to areas close to Afghan border instead of proceeding to relief camps in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
When contacted, an official of the Afghan government confirmed the arrival of 6,642 people, including 1,492 children from North Waziristan Agency in Khost province, where, he said, basic facilities have been provided to them.
He said the families had crossed over to Khost since the fighting between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban began.
“The provincial government has provided land for the refugees in Gurbaz, Nadirshah Kot, Mandozai and Esmail Khail districts of Khost, while a site has also been reserved for them in the provincial capital,” said Mubariz Zadran, spokesman for the Khost governor.
Talking to Dawn over the telephone from Khost, he said on the directives of Afghan health ministry, polio vaccination programme had been started for Pakistani tribesmen.
**
[HR][/HR]The Taliban have placed a ban on polio vaccination in North and South Waziristan agencies since 2012.
Officials of the federal state and frontier region ministry dismissed reports about the movement of people of North Waziristan to Afghanistan for taking shelter.
An official, however, said there was no fencing on the border, so the North Waziristan residents, who had properties in Afghanistan, could go back and forth.
“This is a normal movement. Nomad families, especially those Fleeing tribesmen consider Afghanistan safer from Saidgi, Gurbaz and Sherkhel tribes, regularly go to Afghanistan and come back,” he said, adding that the cross-border movement of the tribal people could not be restricted under the Right of Easement.
“Many families have properties across the border, so they regularly go to Afghanistan without restriction,” he said, adding that the Afghan government might exploit the issue.
The Right of Easement is a unique provision in the Durand Line Agreement between the British India and the then Afghan rulers under which the divided tribes on both sides of the border are allowed to carry out cross-border movement without restriction or formality.
The security forces have blocked the Miramshah-Ghulam Khan Road to stop the people from going to Afghanistan.
However, families are reportedly using the unfrequented routes to cross the border.
There is no management of the Pak-Afghan border and apart from the Right of Easement, the people can cross over easily. Maulana Sufi Mohammad of Tehreek Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi had led thousands of people from Malakand division and the adjoining tribal areas to Afghanistan to join the Taliban’s fight against local warlords before the US attack in 2001. As a result, hundreds of people were either killed, imprisoned or went missing in Afghanistan.
However, Mubariz Zadran dispelled the impression that only nomad families, who had houses in Khost, had taken shelter in Afghanistan.
“This is not true. Over 361 families, who came from Mirali, Miramshah and other parts of North Waziristan, have no properties in Khost, have arrived here. We’ve properly registered them all,” he said.
The spokesman for the Khost governor said the Afghan government had been fulfilling basic needs of refugees and was ready to facilitate more dislocated people from North Waziristan.
“The Afghan government is offering refuge to the people of Waziristan only on humanitarian grounds and they can go back to their homes anytime,” he said.
**The officials said the Afghan government had also requested the United Nations and other humanitarian organisations in Kabul to provide relief assistance to the new refugees.
**
“The UN agencies have accepted the request in principle,” said Mubariz Zadran.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
The army does not want to carry out the operation, reason being the blowback that is expected. Secondly the borders of fata and Afghanistan are porous, it's almost impossible to man them. The army would prefer that the foreigners leave by themselves.
true...only to RETURN after the operation! what's the wisdom behind the operation then? are they gonna bomb the empty houses then? that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. after the US leaves AfGhanistan, God forbid, they will return more savage, more strong and more established. would the army fight them at that time?
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
This was probably the reason why Saudis and who ever else is funding this terror (Israeli government in hiding?) selected this part of the world. It's easy for people to escape.
The Afghanistan government is now complicit in these criminals, they are willingly giving them a home to hide in in their provincial capitol even.
It wasn't too long ago that Karzai was blaming Pakistan of harboring terrorists who were attacking in Afghanistan, and now the tables are turned. Pakistan is gonna feel the effects of what it did during the 2000's when America was in Afghanistan. Doesn't feel so great now that the neighboring muslim country is harboring people who are trying to kill you off, now does it?
The only way to get rid of these people is not through weapons. It's through reform of education, and especially religious education. Madrassas need to be reformed. For that, there needs to be a door to door operations and investigations as to what is happening in these madrassas and removing kids that are being taught a violent curriculum to psychologically decompress them of the violence. They would need to be moved to Islamabad or somewhere else and undergo therapy with psychotherapists, and doctors.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
true...only to RETURN after the operation! what's the wisdom behind the operation then? are they gonna bomb the empty houses then? that doesn't make any sense whatsoever. after the US leaves AfGhanistan, God forbid, they will return more savage, more strong and more established. would the army fight them at that time?
This is a fact of life, no one can control those borders...the same Imran Khan is saying for years and has been lynched for that.
If you ask people from fata, the Durrand line is basically an artificial line dividing villages of the same people. In some cases half the family lives on Pakistani side and the other half on the other side. These people will help people of their families when ever the situation gets tough from them. Secondly the army cannot conduct an indiscriminate operation as that would cause a lot of collateral damage, if they allow people to move to safer places there is danger that militants might escape too. We can see how previous operation have moved these places to urban areas, now how many operations can the army conduct?
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
... and go where? The Uzbeks and other hardliners are not gonna leave that area that provides them every facility. Seems like another effort to not to launch any operation against strategic assets!
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
... and go where? The Uzbeks and other hardliners are not gonna leave that area that provides them every facility. Seems like another effort to not to launch any operation against strategic assets!
good point.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
This is a fact of life, no one can control those borders...the same Imran Khan is saying for years and has been lynched for that.
If you ask people from fata, the Durrand line is basically an artificial line dividing villages of the same people. In some cases half the family lives on Pakistani side and the other half on the other side. These people will help people of their families when ever the situation gets tough from them. Secondly the army cannot conduct an indiscriminate operation as that would cause a lot of collateral damage, if they allow people to move to safer places there is danger that militants might escape too. We can see how previous operation have moved these places to urban areas, now how many operations can the army conduct?
So what is his solution apart from appeasing these animals. He is singing from the same hymm sheet again since yesterday. How many more innocent people will have to die before he stops his support for these pigs.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
The thing is militants have already spread through out pakistan especially karachi n kpk even if army go n bomb them they will still bomb parts of pakistan first we have to clear other parts of pakistan. I have been listening to karachi operation since so long yet it is not cleared. Karachi airport incident was a reality check of our security even after high alert notification.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
So what is his solution apart from appeasing these animals. He is singing from the same hymm sheet again since yesterday. How many more innocent people will have to die before he stops his support for these pigs.
lets forget all other aspects for a second..the fact that IK has been supporting negotiations with these animals for so long no matter how much damage they do is THE biggest reason why we lack consensuses among Pakistani masses against thee animals. He is popular in urban areas and therefore he even confused that base who otherwise would have opposed negotiating these animals vigorously
since as a nation, we are not capable to lift ourselves above our biases, loyalties, political affiliations...it is embarrassing and disappointing to see PTI supporters keep supporting IK's strategy on talibanism one way or the other...or just keep quiet.
If i remember correctly you are the only one on this forum who chose to speak openly against IK's stand on taliban even though you supported him during elections and you are anti-PMLN as well.
My point is...you can still support PTI and IK but for god sake condemn where you feel he is wrong instead of coming up with some vague explanation....
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
I'm not going to bother with typical opportunistic IK bashing. As if there's nothing in a nation of 180 million other than Imran Khan. Ask any PMLN supporter, he'd say IK is a nobody and its the Sher that's won fair and square, it's who rules the hearts, emotions and the numbers in Pakistan, ask any forever dissatisfied, heartbroken and fashionably skeptical IK critic - the man runs the world, he's a PM, COAS, ISI head, President of UN, head of NATO etc all in one. Good for you if you think Imran is a civilian COAS, and poor little army is terrified and absolutely traumatised by his opinions. The tired, old, mundane, recycled and circular IK bashing by arm chair cynics and haters have achieved nothing, and that's the irony of it all! Tell me what viable popular solution come out of years long systematic negative campaigning against Imran on his war related views? Zilch. Zero. Zippo.
Supporters are supporters, even his haters cannot look beyond him. So no point crying hoarse when even for you Imran is all that there is. For once, try to support a voice, an idea, a narrative (if there are any) you think that represents you instead making desperate pleas for Imran to come to the rescue.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
I'm not going to bother with typical opportunistic IK bashing. As if there's nothing in a nation of 180 million other than Imran Khan. Ask any PMLN supporter, he'd say IK is a nobody and its the Sher that's won fair and square, it's who rules the hearts, emotions and the numbers in Pakistan, ask any forever dissatisfied, heartbroken and fashionably skeptical IK critic - the man runs the world, he's a PM, COAS, ISI head, President of UN, head of NATO etc all in one. Good for you if you think Imran is a civilian COAS, and poor little army is terrified and absolutely traumatised by his opinions. The tired, old, mundane, recycled and circular IK bashing by arm chair cynics and haters have achieved nothing, and that's the irony of it all! Tell me what good had come out of years long systematic negative campaigning against Imran on his war related views? Zilch. Zip. Zippo.
Supporters are supporters, even his haters cannot look beyond him. So no point crying hoarse when even for you Imran is all that there is. For once support a voice, an idea, a narrative (if there is any) you think that represents you instead making desperate pleas for Imran to come to the rescue.
Agreed. But when IK will stop supporting these animals? That is the question. Already 50, 000 innocent Pakistanis have died inflicting billions of $s damage to Pakistan's economy. How many more he wants to be killed by these kaafir monsters whom your leader trumpeting them as 'ghairat mand' pathan before he changes his mind or perhaps not?
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
Will you go reform madarsa while taliban come blow you up? 
Considering that Pakistan doesn’t have the will to bomb afghanistan, this would be another repeat of radio mullah now running radio kunar. All these generals and politicians need to be lined up and shot but ah well i am not there 
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
US was deployed in bulk in 2005-7 times at least some times but Pakistan due to whatever past issues didn’t want to be the hammer in waziristan. I am forgetting his name but there is a US journalist who specializes in military affairs who said last year that Pakistan is in for a treat because of its trust issues / hedging things out few years back.
Re: Foreign fighters leave NWA
I'm not going to bother with typical opportunistic IK bashing. As if there's nothing in a nation of 180 million other than Imran Khan. Ask any PMLN supporter, he'd say IK is a nobody and its the Sher that's won fair and square, it's who rules the hearts, emotions and the numbers in Pakistan, ask any forever dissatisfied, heartbroken and fashionably skeptical IK critic - the man runs the world, he's a PM, COAS, ISI head, President of UN, head of NATO etc all in one. Good for you if you think Imran is a civilian COAS, and poor little army is terrified and absolutely traumatised by his opinions. The tired, old, mundane, recycled and circular IK bashing by arm chair cynics and haters have achieved nothing, and that's the irony of it all! Tell me what viable popular solution come out of years long systematic negative campaigning against Imran on his war related views? Zilch. Zero. Zippo.
Supporters are supporters, even his haters cannot look beyond him. So no point crying hoarse when even for you Imran is all that there is. For once, try to support a voice, an idea, a narrative (if there are any) you think that represents you instead making desperate pleas for Imran to come to the rescue.
I am not asking you for a date again...so no need to be nice ...quote my post directly and kill me bash me destroy me!!!
but seriously ....no one is saying that IK is responsible for actions of army and this govt... Yes Army/Govt could have started the operation..they dont need any permission from IK..they can do whatever they want.
but what you ignore every time is that IK is now head of second largest party in Pakistan......and i think he got more votes than any other party...so what he says on such important and sensitive issues is extremely important as he contributes immensely in shaping the vision of the country.
How bogus this statement is "As if there's nothing in a nation of 180 million other than Imran Khan"...yes mam there are not many IKs, there are not many Nawaz Sharifs, not many bhuttos and not many Altaf Hussain...pathetic but sad reality is that as a nation, we are not capable to lift ourselves above our biases, loyalties, political affiliations and consequently what these very few popular leaders say and do has a huge impact on their followers....