Putting the Peices Together, Part 1: The Battle of Lowi Sam

One of the most frustrating things about the media in Pakistan is its seeming inability to piece together dribbles of information to present a larger picture of what is going on. At least, this often seems the case with the dailies [and the TV news for that matter]. Its an area where monthly magazines such as Herald really standout. [I'm still hoping that they start putting up their articles from back issues on line but so far, no luck.]

Recently everyone has been focused on the impending resignation/impeachment of Musharraf and questions over what will happen next. Personally I don't find the issue terribly interesting. Musharraf has been a dead duck in the water for a while now. Removing him is not going to make a major difference (unless, as rumored he takes the NRO with him, which would be interesting). Anyway, all sorts of interesting and shocking things have been going on in our country, particularly as regards the Taliban and, as usual, the media doesn't seem to be doing a terribly good job of putting it into context. So, I thought I might try to peice some things together in a series of posts over the next few days. Each post will correspond, more or less, to a geographical area. Here's the first:


The Battle of Lowi Sam

It seems to have slipped the notice of many people but the Pakistan armed forces have just fought one of their biggest battles since, oh well, since the ill-fated Wana Operation. Once again this seems to have been a poorly thought out and poorly executed move by the FC (Frontier Corps) that led to heavy casulties.

On August 6th, a force of about 150* FC men moved to occupy Lowi Sam in Bajur Agency, an area which they had evacuated about a year earlier under pressure of Taliban attacks. This initial move was reported in the press as a succesful operation. People were said to have welcomed the arrival of government forces because they were "fed up of the self-styled Shariah and harsh policies of the Taliban". However, there was intimation of trouble to come when, according to Dawn, "Thousands of tribesmen have left their homes in Ghazi Beg, Atokhel, Qandaharo and Khwayzai tehsils and are moving to other places fearing severe clashes in the region".

It turns out that those tribesmen knew something was up.

The Taliban responded to the FC move by heavy attacks that lasted throughout the next day. There were reports of heavy fighting and reinforcements were despatched. These convoys in turn were ambushed on the road and by the next day, 8th August, the military was using airstrikes and helicopter gunships to try and break the "seige" of the FC troops. The reports of casulties widely differed and one can probably safely say that neither the Taliban nor the official figures are entirely reliable, but one measure of how badly things were going can be gauged by the fact that the army spokesman was telling reporters to contact the FC and the FC spokesman was refusing to comment.

On August 9th it was reported that the FC contingent had managed to break out of their encirclement and retreat to the regional FC headquaretrs at Khar. Official sources said that there were 9 dead and 55 missing. The Taliban meanwhile were claiming over a hundred security personel dead and were declaring victory and distributing cash prizes.

Some of the worst loses seem to have occured where convoys were ambushed. Here is the description of one ambush by a witness to the NYT:

The insurgents then used rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine-gun fire to attack a relief convoy of reinforcements sent from Khar, according to residents who arrived in the nearby town of Risalpur on Saturday.

The Taliban also laid roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, along the road the convoy traveled, said Mohammed Khan, a timber merchant from the village of Sadiq Abad whose house was on the route.

“When the convoy stopped because of the I.E.D.’s on the road, then the Taliban were everywhere, in every place — they came and attacked the Frontier Corps,” Mr. Khan said in Risalpur. “After the convoy stopped, there was fighting for two days. The Taliban have the natural advantage because there is so much greenery.”

The maize crop in the fields, a month from harvest, was nearly six feet tall and provided perfect hideouts for the insurgents, he said.

And a description of the scene at Lowi Sam from Dawn:

Eyewitnesses said the situation was chaotic and the area was littered with bodies and burnt vehicles. They said the soldiers, who had been under siege for the past three days, had returned to their base in Khaar, leaving behind bodies, trucks and a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

The FC seem to have lost many vehicles, including tanks and a crane.

And it seems as if the Taliban actually chased the FC all the way back to Khaar and actually tried to beseige the FC Regional Headquarters there. The military responded with extremely heavy shelling and ariel bombardment which seems to caused a great deal of collateral damage, as chronicled here. But it did have the effect of breaking the seige of Khar by 11th August.

By now fighting had spread over a large area, the Taliban were using pirate FM radio stations to rally support and call for help from other areas, and the indescriminate use of artillery had sent over 100,000 people fleeing the fighting. An estimate put the death toll at 160 in 5 days of fighting. Millitants also reportedly beheaded two civilians for cooperating with government forces.

On August 12th, came the news that helicopter gunships had killed several militants including Al Qaeda operative Abu Saeed Al-Masri, a report which was denied by the Taliban and is still unconfirmed. Also, the leader of a Taliban group in North Waziristan, Ahmadullah Ahmedi threatened to start attacking gvoernment forces if they didn't stop their operations in Bajur and Swat (more on that in a later post). Its worth noting that things have been peaceful in Waziristan for months, presumably after the federal government and the Taliban there came to some kind of mutual understanding.

By the next day, there were reports of militants in Bajur stopping civilians from fleeing and attempting to "conscript" locals. Authorities accused them of using women and children as 'human sheilds'. Security forces also announced, by the way, that all wheat fields next to roads must be cleared to a distance of 200m from the road, a measure meant to make it harder for militants to launch the kinds of ambushes that caused such carnage on the road to Lowi Sam. As this article in the News describes, locals sheltered soldiers caught in the ambush.

So what is to be made of this sorry tale?

Firstly, its the FC that is taking the brunt of the fighting. The FC is of course under the control of the civillian Interior Ministry. The army, apart from providing air support seems to want to sit out of Counter-Insurgency operations. Certainly in terms of armament and training, the FC is the inferior force.

Interestingly enough, members of the provincial government have been appealing to the army to take action in FATA. Here is an excellent article by Afrasiab Khattak of the ANP to do just that. But so far the army seems to be keeping more of a hands-off policy here.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, whose articles I always take with a pinch of salt claims that informers within the armed forces had tipped off the Taliban about the FC operation, though this may just be rumour turned into 'news'. [Incidentally Mr Shahzad also seems to be the only reporter in Pakistan who keeps reporting about the death of Al-Qaeda No. 3s - Neither the News or Dawn used the term when they referred to the supposed death of Al-Masri.]

Also of note is that the local populace seems sick of the Taliban and would welcome the return of government rule, and, that the massive use of artillery and airstrikes is eroding that support. I fear I may sound like one of those horrible CNN cliche-spewing experts, but its clear that whats needed is more 'boots-on-the-ground' if the militants are going to be 'flushed out' of places like Lowi Sam.

* Sources differ on the number. Some say between 150 and 200. Another claims 200-300. My guess is that the original force had between 150 and 200 and as more troops were committed to the battle the total number involved approached 300.

Who Killed Bhutto?

The internet and the airwaves are awash with speculation about how, precisely Benazir Bhutto died, and who was responsible for her death. Personally, I don't find much of this 'debate' useful. Her death came as a result of an assassination attempt, whether it was a bullet, a piece of shrapnel, or a fall that killed her is irrelevant at this point. As for who was responsible, there is little doubt that it was the work of extremists. While the question over whether the security arrangements were or were not adequate is one that shouldn't be ignored, it is also of secondary importance. The most important question is to what extent there is collusion with these extremists by members of the state security apparatus.

That there are military insiders who are sympathetic towards, and even active in aiding, the militants is beyond all doubt. There is an informative paper here on some of the recent evidence of extremist infiltration of the higher levels of the Pakistani military. However there seems to be a real question mark over how seriously this threat is being taken by the army leadership and to what extent it is willing, or able, to counter this threat.

Yesterday, when writing about the possible impact of Bhutto's assassination, I wrote:

The assumption is that Musharraf is serious about tackling militancy and is clear-eyed enough to understand what this will entail. Its possible that he doesn't feel militancy is a serious problem, or that a few missile strikes and the doling out of massive quantities of bribe money will "end militancy". Needless to say these tactics have been failing miserably for the last 5 years and will fail miserably again.

In the article I have linked to above, B. Raman writes:

Musharraf is either knowingly dishonest or is living in a make-believe world of his own, unaware of the ground realities. Only a few days before Benazir's assassination, he was bragging to officer trainees in the Defence Services Staff College in Quetta that he had defeated the terrorists outside the tribal belt and would soon be defeating them in the tribal belt too. His reluctance to order an enquiry into the extent of infiltration of Al Qaeda into the GHQ is disturbing. He has convinced himself that not only he is the most popular leader of Pakistan, but also that the entire Armed Forces are devoted to him. Anybody who says otherwise is treated by him as a traitor, arrested and harassed.

As long as Musharraf and the army high command remain reluctant to go through the painful process of a thorough house-cleaning, the security situation will not improve. The problem, of course is that, dragging skeletons out of the cupboard is never good for army morale or cohesion, and with all other possible pillars of support alienated from Musharraf, he needs the army to stand united behind him. As with so many other situations in Musharraf's rule, the inherent contradiction of being a political and military leader has led to a Catch 22 situation.

In a press conference yesterday, the Interior Minister claimed that Baitullah Meshud and Al Qaeda were behind the assassination. An audio recording of a telephone conversation between Meshud and someone else was presented as evidence [you can read the transcript here]. Mehsud has denied his involvement, for whatever that's worth.

Whats interesting here is that firstly, if you read the transcript, it was the unnamed Maulvi who claims responsibility for killing Benazir. Meshud only congratulates him. Secondly, Meshud is speaking by mobile phone, whose location can be easily tracked if one knows what number to look for, and he actually gives his location in the conversation.

What is odd here is that in the press conference, the Pakistani military lays the blame for all the suicide bombings and assassination attempts over the last few months at the feet of Meshud. They are recording his phone conversations, so they know where he is. So if he is regarded as the 'mastermind' of all these terror attacks, why haven't they dropped a precision missile on his head before now? Perhaps there is a reasonable technical explanation, but I don't know what it might be.

That Meshud is a militant leader, I have no doubt. But I am suspicious of this claim that he is personally behind all of these attacks. I'm sure he is cheering them on, and he probably provides a safe-haven and material support for the people behind them from his self-declared Islamic Emirate of Waziristan, but I doubt he is the one ordering and planning the attacks. I get the feeling that one needs to look somewhat closer to home for that. It is quiet possible also that Meshud remains an "intelligence asset" for the military, who are keen to have a force to use against perceived threats in the region [particularly Afghan and Indian intelligence across the Afghan border] with plausible deniability. The military may well be willing to overlook his extracurricular activities in exchange for his services. This also fits well with the military's continuous distinction between 'legitimate' Taliban fighting for their religion and freedom for Afghanistan from 'foreign influences' and 'illegal' Al Qaeda planning terror attacks in Pakistan and abroad. He may simply be a convenient figure for the military to blame for everything - somewhat like how Osama Bin Laden became a catch-all figure to blame to the Americans for all sorts of Islamist militancy a few years back.

Our Great Military Victories

Looking through bits and pieces that I wrote over the last few months, but never went on to complete and post, I came across this unfinished piece about the Musharraf government's capitulations to militants and the largest loss of sovereign Pakistani soil after the loss of East Pakistan in 1971. The article remains unfinished, and perhaps in some ways, now outdated, but I'm posting it up anyway since very few people in Pakistan seem to know about or even acknowledge the carving out of an independent state in our northern areas.

As a soldier, Musharraf supposedly had an outstanding record. Unfortunately as a commander, his record seems to be rather woeful. Apart from the Kargil fiasco, which was a neatly planned tactical exercise, but dangerously foolish strategic blunder that ended in defeat on the battlefield, two separate campaigns in Waziristan have met ignominious ends, and Swat has been a source of severe embarrassment. Lets hope the current army "operation" there has better results. Initial reports from the military sound a positive tone, though I'm highly suspicious of these body counts of air strikes and artillery barrages. How can the army be sure of how many people they are killing, and, more importantly, whether they actually are militants or simply local civillians caught in the crossfire?

I suppose I am ranging far from the purported topic of this post, but I do want to add a little note about the Kargil war. I have heard some people defend the little adventure by stating that the war caused far more Indian casualties than it did Pakistani, that it "jolted" the Indians by showing them that the Pakistani army were still a force to be reckoned with, that it "internationalized the Kashmir issue" (whatever that means) and that it helped "bleed" the Indian army and economy.

These arguments remind me of the English generals of the First World War who defended the Battle of the Somme as a great victory for the British against the Germans, worth the cost of lives lost. The brainchild of the plan, General Haig threw wave after wave of British and French troops against the German trenches at the Somme. After four and a half months, a strip of land 25 km long and 6 km wide had been taken. There were 420,000 British casualties, 200,000 French casualties and 500,000 German casualties. The good General argued that he had won a great victory because he had "bled" the German army, diverted their attention from other fronts, and put them on the defensive. The public and media were appalled because they had been led to believe the promised "great victory" would result in something quiet different. The question some historians ask, is whether the political leaders of Europe would have been more willing to open negotiations if they had not kept being reassured of the coming "great victories" by their military generals.

The repeated attempts at an 'all-or-nothing' military solution to political problems have parallels with the clumsy attempts at directing Pakistan's foreign policy by the military. Perhaps most telling was how Kargill slammed the door shut on the negotiations over Kashmir that had been ongoing at the time between the Vajpayee and Sharif governments. These talks were based around the so-called Livingston Plan through which "a portion of the former princely State of Jammu and Kashmir should be reconstituted as a sovereign entity (but one without an international personality) enjoying free access to and from both India and Pakistan". This was the closest that India ever came in its history to a settlement of the Kashmir issue. According to the analyst, Hassan Abbas, these negotiations had started in March, 1999, and after being briefed about them, Musharraf had called them a good starting point. In May, the Kargil operation was launched, torpedoing the negotiations and till this day, shutting the door on any further negotiations on Kashmir by the Indians.

Truly a great military victory.

Our Feudal Lords

One thing I constantly hear from various members (or retired members) of the armed forces is the assertion that because of "feudalism", or the "feudal-system", democracy can never work in Pakistan and the army needs to run things in order to improve and uplift the people.

Of course, they conveniently ignore the fact that the army as an institution is the biggest feudal land-owner in Pakistan.

The history behind this is interesting, and one I would love to do more research about. But essentially, it goes back to the times when the Punjab was conquered by the British and brought into the imperial fold. At the time, the need to regularly pacify various parts of British India required the existence of a large standing army. Furthermore, it was judicious British policy to incorporate the armies of newly conquered areas into the British army as soon as possible, to prevent large bands of armed men wandering around without work (something the Americans could have learned from in Iraq, but that's another story).

The problem as was, how does one pay for all of this? Going through the expense and headache of a central treasury that collected taxes and then paid them out to the armies was a large undertaking, and one for which the British lacked the patience, manpower, and frankly, money, to do. It was far cheaper to simply allocate the revenues of various lands (the same lands from where soldiers were for the most part recruited) to the army, making the army, in essence the feudal landlords of those areas and the farmers who worked on them, their tennants. This procedure was extended so that there were certain areas which were to provide provisioning for the army, certain areas to provide cattle and horses for transport, etc. All in all, it was a way to maintain a large standing army on the cheap, while helping to integrate that area more firmly under British authority.

The pay off of the system was visible during the Mutiny (or civil war, call it what you may) in 1857 when the mutinying garrisons came almost exclusively from the eastern provinces in the Awadh and Bengal. The newly recruited Punjabi garrisons stayed loyal to the British and helped turn the tide against the mutineers. After the Mutiny, the British reduced recruitment from the eastern provinces and focused on recruitment from the Punjab and frontier peoples such as Pathans and Gurkhas.

After Independence this "feudal" relationship between the army as landlord and the farmers as tenants remained. However, in recent years the army started feeling that it could obtain better yields and profits by corporatizing farming on its lands, rather than retaining a large number of small tenant farmers.

As one gentleman who is a leading light in a large investment firm and an economic analyst enthusiastically assured me a few years ago, this process of corporatization of farming would be of great benefit to the economy. Of course, one wondered if it would be of great benefit for the thousands of farmers it would dispossess and throw off the land? It is this impulse, and the fight against it, that has led to incidents like this.

In a sense, I guess you could credit the army for trying to end feudalism. But not as it ended through land reform throughout Europe, but by simply translating the relationship between the army landlord and peasant tenant to a purely capitalist relationship, and throwing the farmers off the land.

Gagging the Media

Here is the complete text of the ordinance on the electronic media. It seems to concern electronic broadcasting only so the print media is safe for now.

(Edit: No, it seems as if I was wrong. Restrictions have been placed on the print media as well. I'll try and find a link to the specific ordinance.)

These provisions are the kickers:

(k) ensure that no anchor person, moderator or host propagates any opinion or acts in any manner prejudicial to the ideology of Pakistan or sovereignty, integrity or security of Pakistan.

(l) not broadcast any programme inciting violence or hatred or any action prejudicial to maintenance of law and order;

(m) not broadcast anything which defames or brings into ridicule the Head of State, or members of the armed forces, or executive, legislative or judicial organs of the state;

and just to make sure that all bases are covered:

(o) not broadcast anything which is known to be false or baseless or is malafide or for which there exist sufficient reasons to believe that the same may be false, baseless or malafide.”

In other words, anything the government decides it doesn't like can be met with prison terms and massive fines. It is ridiculous in its draconian measures.

I was conversing with a gentleman yesterday who was strongly supportive of the restrictions. Making references to the television media showing the bodies of dead soldiers, showing captured soldiers, and interviewing militants, he spoke at length about the media's sensationalism and voyeurism, and then went on about how in the United States, the media exercises self-censorship by not showing bodies or coffins, or pictures of soldiers who have been captured, and refuse to give any voice to any of the militants they are waging their war of terror upon. Contrasting the Pakistani and US media, he went to say that in Pakistan, the government should impose restrictions because the Pakistani media is not responsible enough to exercise self-censorship.

To this line of argument, my immediate response is: has the American media model served America well? If you are a conspiracy theorist who believes that in the last five or six years, world events have unfolded according to a American master plan of domination - that the civil war in Iraq was planned from the start and that the American government and military are all sitting around patting themselves on the back due to their successful domination of the world etc. then perhaps you might feel that the American media model must be forcibly emulated in Pakistan. To believe this, one suspects, you would either have to be a member of Bush's public relations staff, or a complete buffoon. (The two categories not being necessarily exclusive).

Has the American media served the American people well by exercising self-censorship and allowing itself to be used by the government as a tool? Most assuredly not. It served the interests of a small clique in the ruling class, allowing them to launch a war which has been disastrous for America in terms of wasted lives, a suffering economy and growing anti-Americanism around the world. It may have been financial profitable for Bush and his immediate circle - but they are not, in of themselves, America.

So in Pakistan, a gagged media will serve the interests of a small clique of rulers and their immediate circles. But will it serve the interests of the people? No.

Edit: Some more thoughts, considerations and qualifications on this topic here.

The State of Emergency

Rumours about a possible state of emergency had been flying about for several days, so Musharaf's move to suspend the constitution and, in effect, impose martial law, is not unexpected. The PCO issued by Musharaf keeps the national and provincial assemblies intact and only dismisses the judiciary and imposes tight controls on the media. The reason for this being, of course, that much of the opposition have already resigned from the assemblies and it was in the courts that a battle was being waged against Musharaf's reign. (Here is the text of the declaration.)

Musharaf claims that he is saving Pakistan from suicide, blaming militant violence and the judiciary for paralyzing the government.

Benazir Bhutto, who less than two weeks after her return to Pakistan decided to fly back to Dubai for a vacation, had earlier said that she might delay her vacation because of fears of the imposition of martial law. Then she left anyway and only returned after the state of emergency had been declared, expressing her "surprise" at the step.

So what to make of all this? Here is an article that effectively supports Musharaf's move. To me, it reads like yet another disgusting apology for the dictatorship of Pakistan's colonial elite.

Mr Eterez refers to "young professionals" and businessmen - people from the same thin upper class layer as himself who have benefited from Musharaf's rule the most. He mentions economic growth but doesnt mention the growing disparity in wealth, or the strong inflationary rates that have turned the common man against the government (over 50% and sometimes close to 100% for basic household goods and foodstuff in the period Musharaf was in charge). Furthermore, much of this growth was driven not by Musharaf's policies but by the cash windfall the country received post 9/11 from remittances looking for sanctuary from tougher banking laws in the west and Middle Eastern investment from money from booming oil prices. At the same time privatization has followed at full steam, also providing a windfall for the country's rich, but doing little to provide any kind of relief to the common man. In fact, the reference in the Emergency Declaration to the judiciary blocking "economic development" is an obvious reference to the Supreme Court's ruling against the privatization of the Pakistan Steel Mills - a shocking scandal in which several senior governmnt officials participated to sell of the industry at a fraction of its worth (in return for alleged kickbacks).

Having met and spoken to various businesmen and CEOs of investment firms in Pakistan - the same people who are most enamoured of Musharaf and his economic policies - I have found that while they are for the most part secular in their personal outlook, their virulent nationalism often leaves them obsessed with theories of the coming "decline of the west", their anti-semitism, (one refered me to Henry Ford's "The International Jew" - an anti-semitic text given all the more legitimacy in their eyes for being linked to one of the scions of modern capitalism), and insistence on Pakistan's participation in a 'great game' to dominate the region by using Islamic militants as a tool of foreign policy. They may be believers in capitalism and secularism - but, like the old British colonial elite from whom they took charge of the country - they are no believers in democracy and are full of nothing but contempt for their fellow citizens.

Its fine for Mr Eterez to sit cosily in his London home and extol the virtues of martial law, but about the only achievement of which Musharaf could legitimately boast - the blooming of a free media under his reign - has been undone by this latest move. The press has been stifled - and prison terms will now be imposed on anyone who criticizes the government. A great way to support the growth of "civil society". Conceivably, I could be sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and fined for writing this blog post criticizing the government's move.

This gagging of the press comes in the wake of reporting from Swat where military forces have been surrendering in droves to the militants and giving undertakings not to serve in the armed forces anymore. The militants have been gleefully arranging press conferences and inviting press reporters to photograph the weapons, arms and ammunition - ranging from armoured cars to rocket launchers - that have been falling in to their hands from these mass surrenders. Instead of taking a good hard look at their own tactics and strategies, the army has decided it needs to gag the press in order to "preserve morale".

As President and Chief of the Army, Musharaf has presided over the largest loss of sovereign Pakistani territory since the 1971 war - to the very Islamic militants he nurtured to use as a foreign policy instrument in Afghanistan and Kashmir. This on top of his failed war in Kargil in 1998. At least Yahya Khan had the decency to resign after the 1971 war. Musharaf however refuses to do so despite his complete loss of credibility. If Pakistan is on the path to suicide, as Musharaf claimed in his address yesterday - then he is one of those whose actions are pushing it to the brink.

Keeping the Story Straight

Looking through bits and pieces that I wrote over the last few months, but never went on to complete and post, I came across this unfinished piece about the Musharraf government's capitulations to militants and the largest loss of sovereign Pakistani soil following military defeat behind the loss of East Pakistan in 1971. It remains unfinished, and perhaps in some ways, now redundant, but I'm posting it here anyway since very few people in Pakistan seem to know about or even acknowledge the carving out of an independent state in our northern areas:

11/6/2007

The Musharraf administration have obviously not learned anything from the Bush government. While it has been acknowledged universally by the media, analysts, think tanks, intelligence officials, government bureaucrats and even low level administration officials in the U.S. that there really was no connection between Saddam's Iraq and Al Qaeda, Bush, Cheney and the top ranks have stuck to their guns, repeating endlessly the lie that there was a link. Such stubborn discipline in the face of reality is truly admirable.

Alas discipline is not a prime quality of the Musharraf administration. For years it has been the party line that there is no Al Qaeda in Pakistan. There were stragglers, foreigners, miscreants and the odd sympathizer but no significant Al Qaeda presence. Needless to say that it has been acknowledged universally by the media, analysts, think tanks, intelligence officials etc. that there is a very significant Al Qaeda presence in Pakistan, dug in in the tribal areas. In fact, last month Musharraf himself stated that "Al -Qaeda is in our mountains, in Mir Ali. This is completely true."

Was the government finally facing up to reality? If so, no one told the Foreign Office, which only a few days strongly rejected the claim that there were Al Qaeda bases in the tribal areas of Pakistan. Not quiet on the same page, are we?

But given the actual situation in NWFP and the tribal areas, perhaps the administration can be forgiven for not always knowing what lies to tell and which lies are now redundant. Given the military defeat of the Pakistani army and its retreat from the tribal areas last year, and the humiliating terms it had to sign with the Taliban and Talibanesque fringe groups, the fact of the matter is that Pakistan has actually lost control of the largest chunk of its territory since the ill-fated 1971 war. 2006 was the year that the 'Islamic Emirate of Waziristan' came into existence.

The Pakistani government still officially denies that it lost any territory. Rather, they claim that they simply signed accords with local tribes that meant that the tribes would take it upon themselves to ensure that none of the foreign "guests" residing in the region would take part in any terrorist acts.

The actual signatories of the accord were the Islamic Republic of Pakistan and the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. Of the patchwork of tribes in the area, only those whose leaders were Jihadis were recognized as signatories. Other tribes that were not so closely connected with the Taliban or other Jihadi groups were abandoned and found themselves now subject to Taliban-style rule - enforced by tribal rivals. In return for being given a free hand to do what they wished, the Pakistan army asked only that the Jihadis not attack them.

Interestingly the process was then repeated in a number of other tribal areas. As it so happened, under pressure from the United States, Pakistan allowed limited air-strikes to be carried out against a few targets in late 2006 and early 2007. Meanwhile, emboldened by their success, Jihadi groups started putting pressure on other other tribal agencies and even areas of Pakistan proper, forcing more concessions from the Pakistani government and fears from local tribes that they were being abandoned.