Chiefs decry war in Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Pashtun tribal chiefs, who for centuries have held sway in the Hindu Kush mountain range along the border with Afghanistan, say they are being thrust into an Iraq-style war between violent Islamists and the Pakistani army.

“It’s there. Bombs going off every day,” said Haroon-ur-Rasheed, one of eight tribal leaders who drove for hours to the regional capital of Peshawar to speak with a reporter and photographer for The Washington Times.

The leaders described a violent tribal area in which Islamic militants routinely behead women suspected of adultery and use bombs to destroy schools for girls — 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 modeled on those being used to attack American troops in Iraq.

In the latest incident yesterday, a burqa-wearing terrorist detonated herself in the town of Bannu on the fringe of the tribal areas, killing 14. Wire agencies said it appeared to be the first instance of a female suicide bomber in Pakistan.

Shortly after President Pervez Musharraf seized power eight years ago, he won support from Islamist political parties by holding elections in which a six-party coalition — many with close ethnic and tribal ties to the Taliban — won control of the legislature of the North West Frontier Province, including its autonomous tribal zones.

“The tribes are loyal to Pakistan,” insisted Mr. Rasheed, a former member of the national parliament.

“The tribal areas were used to supply the mujahideen [in Afghanistan] against the Russians,” he added. “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 [Afghan] refugees.”

Mr. Rasheed 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.

Sporting tribal turbans and beards with varying streaks of gray, they all agreed that Gen. Musharraf’s decision to redeploy troops to autonomous tribal zones along the Afghan border last month had thrust them into a war in which Gen. Musharraf and the Pakistani army had become proxies for President Bush and the U.S. forces.

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.”

“The U.S. doesn’t need Osama. In Iraq, there was Saddam [Hussein] and he was no Osama but they attacked anyway. It’s a wish of U.S. to attack Muslims,” he said. “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 U.S. forces based in Afghanistan who have pursued Taliban insurgents across the border into Pakistan. Mr. Rasheed resigned his seat in the federal parliament to protest one such raid last year.

Such raids could become even more common if former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto — who says she will return to Pakistan this month — is able to regain her post as prime minister.

“I would hope that I would be able to take Osama bin Laden myself without depending on the Americans,” she said in an interview yesterday on BBC World News America. “But if I couldn’t do it, of course we are fighting this war together and [I] would seek their cooperation in eliminating him.”

Story Continues →