Recent reports from Pakistan suggest that foreign Islamist militants harbored in recent years by tribes within Pakistan’s semi-autonomous borderlands may be wearing out their welcome. Reports describe a violent campaign by tribal militia in South Waziristan to confront and expel foreign fighters who have run afoul of tribal norms and provocatively challenged tribal authority. Hundreds of foreign fighters have reportedly been killed, and Al Qaeda-associated militant strongholds taken.
The clashes may mark a pivotal point in fight against Islamist militants in Pakistan’s tribal borderlands; an opportunity for Pakistan and other concerned nations to exploit and energize emerging tribal hostility toward some foreign militants as a means of isolating them from their tribal sanctuary.
Power Struggles
Contentious sentiment and dynamics between tribes and foreign militants have grown in recent months, centering on power struggles in many areas. The past months have seen an influx of Taliban, al Qaeda, radical Pakistani militants, and foreign fighters into Pakistan’s tribal areas following a number of peace deals between the government and tribes. After the peace deals the military withdrew, creating a permissive environment and growing base of operation for Islamist militants. As the foreign fighters streamed in, they reportedly endeavored to build their control and influence in many regions (March 20, 2007 Intelligence Report).
With this growing power and control has come the imposition of a more severe and repressive Taliban styel form of Islamic law and other activities aimed at intimidation that have challenged tribal leadership and authority, causing resentment among many locals and tribal leaders in the region. Tribal militia-foreign fighter clashes were further ignited due to the attempt last month by Uzbek militants to kill a pro-government tribal elder.
In response, tribes in South Waziristan have established militias to battle these foreign militants, and to target particularly Uzbek militants. A pro-government ethnic Pashtun tribal leader issued an open demand last month that foreigners disarm or leave in South Waziristan, sparking fighting there that has killed as many as 200 foreigners and up to 50 tribal fighters. Officials say the vast majority of foreign fighters killed are Uzbeks, Chechens, and Tajiks and their local allies.
Tribal militias have reportedly cleared at least two towns—Azam Warsak and Shin Warsak—of al Qaeda-associated foreign militants, and continue to carry out house-to-house searches for foreign fighters. Following the ouster of foreign militants in Shin Warsak—about six miles west of South Waziristan’s main town of Wana—the Pakistani military moved in to secure the town. It was the first major movement of Pakistani troops outside Wana in the tribal borderlands since the government and tribes agreed to a peace deal in 2005. Other fighting occurred in the village of Doza Ghundai, where dozens of Uzbeks were reported to have surrendered.
Further energizing tribal militias against foreign fighters, a council of elders in Wana last week declared a jihad—or holy war—against Central Asians in their midst, accusing them of killing tribe members and disregarding local traditions. Recent media reporting states that the main commander of tribal militias battling the foreign militants is Maulvi Nazir, a known Taliban sympathizer who, according to the government, has shifted allegiance to the government.
Tribal Intrigue
In addition to going after unruly Uzbek fighters, Nazir is also thought to be engaged in a local power struggle among the Ahmadzai Wazir tribal leaders—an additional driver to recent clashes. In this vein, media reporting suggests that the groupings, motivations, and dynamics arrayed within the tribal militia-foreign fighter clashes may not be clear cut as they would appear, and rather are riven with tribal and foreign fighter alliances and power struggles. The precise alliances among groups is complex and may not divide strictly along tribal and foreign lines, with some reports indicating that mixed groupings of local tribes and foreign militants are jostling for local power.
Clashes May Signal Turning Point
The Pakistani government would like to foster the impression that the tribal-foreign fighter clashes are the fruition, and vindication, of a series of controversial peace deals the government signed with tribal militants that stipulated that tribes clamp down on foreign militants and prevent them from staging cross-border insurgent attacks in Afghanistan. These deals were widely criticized among Western nations as creating a safe haven for regrouping al Qaeda, Taliban, and associated foreign Islamist militants—a development that recent reports have outlined and linked in part to the peace deals. The current fighting may be the result of tribal elements making good on the terms of the deals. More likely though is that the clashes are driven by tribal elements flexing against the power plays of foreign militants attempting to assert dominance in the tribal lands, as well as the jostling for power among local tribal leaders.
It remains unclear if the tribal militia-foreign militant clashes developed within the tribes and/or were cultivated by Pakistani government. It is also unclear exactly how much of the fighting is driven by complex tribal-foreign alliances and jostling for power.
Whatever the reason, the willingness on the part of some tribal elements in South Waziristan to continue to harbor foreign militants seems to be eroding. That such tribal-foreign fighter animosities have developed, and that the area is convulsed in such power struggles and clashes would seem to present counterterrorism opportunities to cultivate and exploit these animosities to further erode the safe haven environment enjoyed by foreign Islamist militants. Playing up provocative foreign militant bad behavior in tribal lands, and backing tribal elements against the foreign fighters may serve to energize the legendary autonomous character of the tribes more fully against foreign militants.
Pakistani and allied counterterrorism forces will likely seek to engage, cajole, and support tribes to fight and inform on the foreign militants as a powerful strategy to ultimately isolate and unhinge them from their support base and sanctuary. BBC reports suggest that the Pakistani government has been able to sow, exploit, and exacerbate mistrust and other differences between tribal and foreign militant groups to isolate the Uzbek fighters.
If this conflict between tribes and foreign fighters is fully harnessed and leveraged, this spring may mark an advantageous turning point in the fight against the global epicenter of Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied Islamist militant operations in Pakistan.
