Analysis: Trouble in the Tribal Lands
Council on Foreign Relations
November 9, 2006
Prepared by: Carin Zissis
A suicide bomb targeting a Pakistani military school (BBC) has claimed at least forty-two lives in Dargai, a village in the North West Frontier Province and a stronghold of a banned pro-Taliban movement. The militant attack was the deadliest suffered by Pakistani armed forces since 2002, when they began efforts to control terrorist elements in the volatile, semi-autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the Pakistani-Afghan border. Federal Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao says the attack was likely retaliation (VOA) for last week’s bombing of a madrassa in nearby Bajaur. Although some Pakistanis speculate U.S. or NATO forces were behind the madrassa attack, President Pervez Musharraf continues to defend what he says was a Pakistani counterterrorism air strike (Dawn).
But Musharraf’s tough talk rings hollow as he appears unable to rein in militant factions in the Pashtun tribal lands of Pakistan, described in this new Backgrounder. In the years following 9/11, the deployment of 80,000 Pakistani troops along the border exacerbated rather than minimized religious extremism. As part of Musharraf’s bid to pacify tribal leaders, the two sides reached the North Waziristanpeace agreement in September 2006. The accord is regarded by Musharraf’s critics as the Pakistani army’s “tacit surrender” to militants, as explained in an analysis by Jan Cartwright of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Blogger Bill Roggio says the pact “gave the terrorists free reign over the region.”
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Copyright 2006 by the Council on Foreign Relations. This material is republished on GlobalSecurity.org with specific permission from the cfr.org. Reprint and republication queries for this article should be directed to cfr.org.
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