With all the recent topi drama some important news gets missed. The killings continue. At least 2 soldiers dead during the last 24 hours.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\10\03\story_3-10-2007_pg7_13
Tribal leaders caught up between army, militants
By Khalid Hasan
Washington: Pashtun tribal leaders feel they are being thrust into an Iraq-style war between violent Islamists and the Pakistan army, according to an interview published here on Tuesday.
According to a Peshawar-datelined report in the Washington Times, tribal leader Haroon-ur-Rasheed told the newspaper’s correspondent, “It’s there. Bombs going off every day.” He was among a group that had travelled to the capital city of the province for several hours for the interview.** The leaders described a violent tribal area in which Islamic militants routinely behead women suspected of adultery and use bombs to destroy girls schools – so far only on Sundays, when no students are present. Pakistani army forces who venture into the area are also being targeted with rockets, mortars and roadside bombs like those being used to attack American troops in Iraq. The first instance of a female suicide bomber in Pakistan took place in Bannu on Monday.**
Haroon-ur-Rasheed told the newspaper, “The tribes are loyal to Pakistan. The tribal areas were used to supply the mujahideen against the Russians. We faced everything right in front of us, the Russian army. When the fighting ended, we expected prosperity, but the Americans left and we had thousands of refugees.” He said he and his companions proposed the meeting in Peshawar on the grounds that their home territory has become so dangerous that they are unable to protect Western visitors. Asked who represents the biggest threat to Islam, Osama bin Laden or the United States, one of the tribal leaders, Zarhur Afridi, said there was “no comparison.”
He said, “The US doesn’t need Osama. In Iraq, there was Saddam and he was no Osama but they attacked anyway. It’s a wish of the US to attack Muslims. Now when we see Bush poking his head into our affairs, we don’t like it.”
The leaders were particularly concerned about occasional raids by US forces based in Afghanistan who have pursued Taliban insurgents across the border into Pakistan. Haroon-ur-Rasheed resigned his seat in the federal parliament to protest one such raid last year. The tribal leaders scoffed at US claims that Arab terrorists and other foreign fighters are hiding in the tribal areas. The only foreigners, they said, were fellow ethnic Pashtuns from Afghanistan. “There never has been a full-fledged border. People are related, by blood. Members of the same family cross back and forth every day. It’s been like this for centuries,” said Mohammed Ameen. “The Americans see these people going back and forth and think they see the Taliban. To say they are Taliban is just as false as those chemical weapons in Iraq.” However, none of the leaders’ arguments is likely to shake the convictions of US military forces that Islamist militants have bases in Pakistan from which they train and wage war in Afghanistan, and that bin Laden is hiding in the area.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\10\03\story_3-10-2007_pg7_2
3 dead in attack outside Orakzai’s brother’s home
HANGU: Militants shot at a police checkpost outside the residence of NWFP Governor Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai’s brother, Muhammad Amin, in Hangu on Tuesday, killing two policemen and a Levy guard and injuring two policemen and a civilian.
Hangu District Nazim Ghaniur Rehman told Daily Times that it was too soon to say whether the attack was aimed at Amin or was part of the ongoing attacks on security forces across the country. The injured were rushed to Hangu Hospital. staff report
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\10\03\story_3-10-2007_pg7_5
Qaeda ‘re-emerging’ in Pakistan sanctuaries, says US military
BAGRAM AIR BASE: The US military said on Tuesday it expected Al Qaeda to continue its “re-emergence” in sanctuaries in Pakistan’s tribal areas from where it supported attacks in Afghanistan. Sanctuary was provided to Al Qaeda and Taliban rebels after Islamabad signed a peace deal with militants in a desperate attempt to quell the unrest in its Tribal Areas in September 2006, US Major Tim Williams, future operations intelligence planner, told reporters at Bagram Air Field. The militants called off the deal in July this year after Pakistani security forces raided a radical mosque in Islamabad where rebels had massed. “This area remains a support and sanctuary area for the insurgency as results of those peace accords,” he said. He said the Islamic rebels were likely to maintain their presence in those areas despite apparent efforts by Pakistani army to root them out. “In FATA, we anticipate sanctuary in this region to continue the Al Qaeda re-emergence,” Williams said. This “sanctuary” could shelter the fugitive Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden and Taliban chief Mullah Mohammad Omar, the officer said. afp