Tribes inflamed by Qaeda hunt

"We have told the tribal chiefs to immediately hand over the men who harbored Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists and assisted them in fighting against US forces across the border or be ready for a massive operation," says a senior administrative official, Pir Anwer Ali Shah. "We will not let anybody harbor terrorists in our territory."

Pakistan's tribal belt still follows the format established by colonial officers prior to the end of British rule in 1947. The federal government "administers" the independent tribal belt, but Pakistani laws do not apply to the tribesmen. The administration uses the dated British-era Frontier Crimes Regulations, under which tribal elders have to hand over wanted criminals at the request of the federal government. So far, tribal chiefs have handed over three alleged hosts of Al Qaeda to the authorities.

"It is a political game between the authorities and tribal chiefs," says Waziristan-based writer and sociologist Sailab Meshud. "The authorities are pressuring the tribesmen, and the tribal chiefs are buying time [for] Al Qaeda fighters and their local agents to slip away and prevent clashes between the tribesmen and the Pakistan Army," Mr. Meshud says.

But the tribesmen are enraged, and accuse President Pervez Musharraf of conspiring against the tribesmen at the behest of Washington.

"It is an order of Bush Sahib [President Bush] that doesn't spare tribesmen, and Musharraf is a yes man," says Farid Khan, while cleaning the barrel of his Kalashnikov. "We will defend ourselves," he says.

Thousands of these tribesmen have fought alongside Mujahideen groups in Afghanistan during the past 24 years of turmoil in the war-ravaged country. When US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, hundreds of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters hid in South Waziristan, drawing on the age-old tradition of support from local tribesmen.

These religious and conservative tribesmen also support Pakistan's religious parties, which banded together for last year's general elections and swept the polls in the Frontier province on an anti-US platform. The alliance, bitterly opposed to Musharraf's government for siding with the US-led war on terror, is now holding protests across the country against the crackdown in the tribal areas, criticizing the US and Islamabad and voicing support for Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters and tribesmen.

"The use of the Pakistani Army against its own people for the protection of American interests in regrettable," says a senior religious leader, Zar Noor Afridi. "The bloodshed of mujahideen should be stopped immediately."

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