"I've been to Waziristan. I can see how tough that terrain is. It's ruled by a handful of tribes", said Senator John S. McCain in a recent presidential debate referring to Waziristan "agency" in Pakistan's FATA region.
Often described in the world media as "lawless" and "a terrorists sanctuary", Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) region, particularly Waziristan, has been the topic of news, discussions and presidential debates in the United State this year. There are reports that President Bush has authorized US special ops covert strikes inside FATA. US presidential candidate Barack Obama has openly advocated US ground troops incursions and air strikes in FATA. While many Americans, including several prominent politicians and candidates for high offices, have heard about FATA, their knowledge appears to be very sketchy and completely inadequate for making potentially dangerous policy toward Pakistan. Even the "experts" and Washington think tanks do not fully understand or appreciate the consequences of FATA incursions by the US military. So what is FATA? What is its history? Who lives there? How is it governed or not governed? Can it turn into another Vietnam for the US troops? Let's try and discuss answers to these important questions.
What is FATA?
FATA is Pakistan's federally administrated tribal area. It is bordered by Afghanistan to the west with the border marked by the Durand Line, the North-West Frontier Province and the Punjab to the east, and Balochistan to the south. It is considered Pakistan's "wild west" where the inhabitants have always loved their guns and their freedom. The region, with its gun-loving culture, fierce independence and religious zealotry, was instrumental in Afghan Mujahedeen's successful resistance against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, and the region contributed to the defeat and eventual fall of the Soviet Union in the 1990s. It became home to millions of Afghan refugees in the 1980s, many of whom grew up there. The region's seminaries (also called madrassahs) are believed to have given birth to the Taliban (literally meaning "students") who ruled Afghanistan until the US invasion of 2001.
The total population of the FATA is estimated at 3m Pashto-speaking people (Pashtoons or Pathans), or roughly 2% of Pakistan's population. The people of the region share common language, culture and tribal traditions with their kin across the border in Afghanistan. Region's inhabitants' tribal ties are stronger than their national identities. In many cases, the Pakistan-Afghan border (called the Durand line, drawn by the British colonial officials) divides the tribes between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Only 3.1% of the population resides in established townships. It is the most rural administrative unit in Pakistan.
FATA consists of seven "agencies", each nominally managed by Pakistan government's "political agents". The agencies are named Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, North and South areas of Waziristan and six FRs (Frontier Regions) namely FR Peshawar, FR Kohat, FR Tank, FR Banuu, FR Lakki and FR Dera Ismail Khan. The main towns include Miranshah, Razmak, Bajaur, Darra Bazzar, Ghalanai as Head Quareters of Mohmand Agency and Wana .
FATA Governance Model:
FATA is constitutionally part of Pakistan, but the Pakistani constitution says that the country's laws do not apply there- unless the president of Pakistan specifically decrees otherwise in certain circumstances. The tribes rule by the age-old jirga system that makes rules and dispenses justice. This governance model was developed by the British colonial government based on treaties with the Pushtoon tribes, and continued unchanged after Pakistan's independence. It relies on Political Agents (PAs), appointed by the governor of NWFP (North West Frontier Province) on behalf of Pakistan's president. The PAs are the highest officials of the state of Pakistan in tribal agencies. They do not directly rule or administer, but they work with the tribal chiefs (maliks) using carrots and sticks to influence the tribes' behavior. The PAs provide money, infrastructure support and other incentives to the maliks in exchange for cooperation. When such cooperation is not forthcoming, the PAs withhold funds, levy fines and, in rare circumstances, threaten the use of military force to bring them in line. The bottom line is that the system relies on the PAs cooperation with the maliks. Without it, the governance model falls apart. After repeatedly trying and failing to establish control, this system was codified by the British in Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) in 1901 and remains in force today. Like the colonial Britsh rulers of the past, no government in Pakistan has managed to take full control of FATA since the country's independence in 1947.
The American "Jihad" and FATA governance:
After the Soviet invasion in late 1970s and occupation of Afghanistan in 1980s, the US got heavily involved in Afghanistan and threw its support behind the Pashtoons resisting the Russian invaders. In fact, President Ronald Reagan invited some of the current Taliban leaders back in the 1980s to the White House and hailed them as "moral equivalents of America's founding fathers". Saudi Arabia also joined the efforts to evict the Russians from Afghanistan. According to Maximilian Forte, the Taliban expert Ahmad Rashid points out that the core and founding leadership of the current Taliban movement did indeed form part of the anti-Soviet mujahidin struggle.
In particular, the following Taliban names need special mention:
* Mullah Omar
* Mullah Mohammed Hassan Rehmani, the former Taliban Governor of Kandahar, “a founder member of the Taliban…considered to be number two in the movement to his old friend Mullah Omar”
* Mohammed Ghaus, former Foreign Minister of the Taliban
* Nuruddin Turabi, former Justice Minister
* Abdul Majid, former Mayor of Kabul
* and Jalaluddin Haqqani, much in the news lately.
That is only a partial list of the Taliban leadership which, with the exception of the last entry, was provided by Ahmed Rashid, a Pakistani journalist, author and an authority on the Taliban.
The joint American-Pakistani-Saudi inspired "Jihad" against the Soviet Union fundamentally altered the power structure and governance in FATA. During this period, two new groups emerged to subvert the the traditional model: Military commanders and Mullahs. The military commanders who led the fight against the Soviets became increasingly powerful and influential because of their leadership abilities and competence as fighters and organizers. The mullahs, who were marginalized and ridiculed before the "Jihad", rose in status and influence because of the religious inspiration they provided for "Jihad". The power of the commanders and the mullahs was also bolstered by the large amount of funding from US, Saudi and Pakistani sources that they received and controlled in this period. The PAs and the maliks are no longer unchallenged as the de facto power brokers in FATA. The power is now more diffused.
Historically, the army only entered FATA at the invitation of the tribal leaders. More recently, however, the traditional tribal power structure has suffered powerful blows as the Pakistani military forcibly entered the tribal areas upon the urging of the Americans. These operations by Pakistani military have had very limited success at the cost of more than two thousand Pakistani soldiers' lives. The FATA tribesmen, familiar with the difficult terrain (rough and barren jagged hills, deep valleys, thousands of caves and mazes of tunnels) and having been well trained and equipped by the US and Pakistani special ops in the 1980s, have demonstrated their upper hand repeatedly in many encounters with Pakistani and US military along the Pakistan-Afghan border. According to various investigators and the press, most of the "militant" casualties claimed by US and Pakistani militaries have turned out to be non-combatants, often women and children, further fueling the anger and resentment of the locals.
US and Pakistani Options:
Clearly, the situation in FATA and Afghanistan must be dealt with to stop the Talibanization of the entire region with all its terrible consequences for the world. But the available options are not good. The use of raw, naked military power will not work. Turning this into a war between the US and Pakistan will only help Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Though long-term and difficult, the only viable and durable option for US and Pakistan is to try and restore the traditional role of the PAs and the maliks by strengthening their power and authority over their respective regions. This option will require a combination of lots of carrots and a few big sticks, with tremendous patience to achieve a lasting solution to one of the most difficult problems in the world. The FATA problems have developed in over two decades as unintended consequence of US-Pak-Saudi intervention in the Afghan "Jihad" of the 1980s. Quick and dirty solutions relying on powerful military force alone will quickly make the situation a lot worse than it is now.
Full-Scale US-Pakistan War:
Initially brief missions by US commandos in FATA will turn into a full-scale US invasion and war with Pakistan, leading to the US getting bogged down in a situation worse than Vietnam. Although it is a remote possibility, resort to tactical nuclear weapons by either Pakistan or the US or both sides can not be completely ruled out if the war gets very protracted and frustrating for all parties involved. Indian or Chinese intervention is also possible, even probable, if a large number of refugees start to pour out of Afghanistan and Pakistan into India and China. The law of unintended consequences will prevail, unless we learn from our past mistakes.
Plea for Sanity:
With Pakistani and US media scrutinizing every US incursion into Pakistani territory, this dangerous game can easily unleash pent-up anger on both sides. For the sake of world peace and security in South Asia, I hope and pray that sanity will prevail in Washington and Islamabad before the US goes too far with its limited, covert commando raids into FATA.
Related Links:
Origins of the Taliban
Violence, Governance and Islam in Pakistan by Jochen Hippler
Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan
McCain-Obama Debate Pakistan Policy
Radicals Target FATA Tribal Elders
Threre are more reasons to migrate to Canada
1 year ago
10 comments:
This is excellent -- highly informative. Thank you.
Here's an interesting report in Pak Observer about ISI Chief's confrontation with CIA chief in Pakistan:
After my four hour long informal interaction with Admiral Mike Mullen, the most powerful man in uniform and Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, the multi-barrel gun directed at Afghanistan and Pakistan, at the residence of US Ambassador on the rainy evening of April 6, 2009, I had in my comments mentioned that now the ISI was the immediate target of the US Establishment. This was no “breaking news” at all as every one who keeps an eye on the ongoing war on terror knew well that US was hell-bent on (i) getting the Pakistan Army sucked in the domestic turmoil in Swat, FATA and beyond Waziristan, and (ii) reining in what the US calls “rogue elements” in the ISI.
There are confirmed reports that to achieve its objectives the CIA hired the services of at least a dozen Afghan warlords inside Afghanistan and provided through them arms and finances to militants in FATA and Swat to carry out murders and devastations in the country. It was like a double-edged sword not only to get the Army launch attacks against Taliban on Pakistani side of the border but also to give a message to the ISI that the CIA can use the Pakistani Taliban against their own security forces. It was in this background that after a long, long tolerance the prime intelligence agency of the country ultimately confronted the CIA Director Leon E. Panetta with some highly classified and irrefutable evidence. Panetta was startled when DG, ISI General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, a no-nonsense General, placed the facts before him in Islamabad on November 20, 2009. The “deliberate leaks” after the meeting of the spy chiefs of the two countries, spoke of the mind of the ISI and the armed forces of Pakistan. General Pasha had earlier conveyed the facts about the interference of CIA in acts of terrorism in Pakistan to the Government but on realizing that either the message was not strongly conveyed to the Americans or it had no desired impact on them, finally put his foot down and expressed serious concerns over the CIA's crude interference in the country's internal matters. The proof about instances of covert US support to some hardened militant outfits and terrorist activities they carried out over the past few weeks and months, was presented to Panetta. It was indeed a startling revelation for the top US spy and a bold manoeuvre of Pakistan Army. General Pasha's tactical move baffled Panetta when he was told in categorical terms that Pakistan had incriminating evidence about the CIA officials' involvement in providing assistance to perpetrators of some terrorist activities within Pakistan, which had negative impact on Pakistan's efforts towards war on terror and that the CIA must shun such activities. The clarity with which the information was conveyed sent a loud message to Capitol Hills that if it wanted Pakistan's cooperation in the war on terror, it must give up playing double games. It is a known fact that the Indian intelligence agency RAW is operating in Afghanistan with the active backing of CIA and not only is it involved in acts of terrorism in the NWFP but also in Balochistan. The Indians cannot undertake such wide-scale activities in this region without the tacit approval and backing of the CIA. The question arises how come India has developed a huge presence in Kabul.
According to a PBS news report, the UNODC estimates that the Taliban earned $90 million to $160 million per year from taxing the production and smuggling of opium and heroin between 2005 and 2009, as much as double the amount they earned while in power nearly a decade ago, reported the Agence France-Presse.
"The Taliban's direct involvement in the opium trade allows them to fund a war machine that is becoming technologically more complex and increasingly widespread," Antonio Maria Costa said.
He called the Afghanistan-Pakistan border "the world's largest free-trade zone in anything and everything that is illicit -- drugs of course, but also weapons, bomb-making equipment, chemical precursors, drug money, even people and migrants."
Less than 2 percent of the opium and heroin is seized by authorities before it leaves Afghanistan, with 40 percent of the heroin trafficked out of the country through Pakistan, 30 percent into Iran and about 25 percent through Central Asia, Reuters reported.
Central Asian nations intercept just 5 percent of the drugs flowing into their countries, as opposed to 20 percent in Iran and 17 percent in Pakistan, the report says, according to the AFP.
Worldwide, only 20 percent of Afghan opiates are intercepted before reaching addicts, while twice as much cocaine from South America is seized, the study said.
Of the 15.4 million opiate users worldwide, 11.3 million use heroin, while the rest use opium, the thick paste from poppies that is used to make heroin, reported Reuters.
Nearly half the world's heroin is consumed in Europe and Russia, and 42 percent of the world's opium users are in Iran.
Heroin and opium cause up to 100,000 deaths a year. Opiates are also helping spread HIV at an unprecedented rate through users sharing needles, the report said.
It should be recalled that the Taliban had completely eradicated poppy from Afghanistan when they ruled in 2000-2001.
Here are excerpts from an Op Ed by Huma Yousuf today in Pakistan's Dawn newspaper:
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has announced that his country is not ‘pushing’ Pakistan to make this move, while Nato has declared that the timing and strategy of the operation are to be fully of the Pakistan Army’s choosing.
This magnanimity does not signal a shift in policy, nor does it indicate that the US has truly come to trust Pakistan as an equal partner in its prolonged war against terror. No, western security forces are backing off from plans to launch the offensive because it’s going to be messy, very messy.
North Waziristan has long been home to Hafiz Gul Bahadur’s militant group, which has struck two peace accords with the Pakistan government (in 2006 and 2008) and therefore refrains from launching attacks against government and army personnel and property in Fata or elsewhere. Previously, Bahadur has prevented other militants, including Baitullah Mehsud, from launching attacks against Pakistan from his territory, and is responsible for expelling many Arab and Central Asian militants from the agencies.
In return for this cooperation, the Bahadur group has been allowed to flourish and is now well-entrenched in North Waziristan: it runs a parallel administration boasting recruiting offices for militants, training camps, madressahs, separate courts and jails and its own taxation policy. If an offensive in the tribal agency disrupts the Bahadur group, the army will face a well-armed and well-organised force that will no longer have any reason to keep foreign fighters at bay.
North Waziristan also serves as a base for the Jalaluddin Haqqani network, which primarily targets coalition forces in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis are old friends of Pakistan’s intelligence agencies, and continue to be cultivated as contacts that could prove useful as political allies in a post-US Afghanistan. This network, too, has not attacked the Pakistani state, but may change its modus operandi if a military operation were to be directed against its fighters.
As practically the only one of Fata’s seven agencies that has not been the site of a military operation, North Waziristan has recently seen an influx of TTP (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan) militants fleeing army action elsewhere. Indeed, a list of all the groups whose activities have been traced to the tribal agency reads like a who’s who of regional militancy. The agency is also believed to be the hiding place of Al Qaeda leaders such as Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri.
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A limited operation will also rule out the need to bring more troops into the vicinity (there are currently about 140,000 troops in the agency, mostly stationed in Miramshah). This is important because military action in Fata since 2005 has earned the ire of non-combatant agency residents who complain they have lost more lives and property because of army action rather than the militant presence.
This perception has fuelled the rate of militant recruitment in the area, and the last thing the North Waziristan operation should do is win more youngsters over to the militant cause. To this end, the army should work with the civilian government to raise enough funds beforehand to accommodate the IDPs who will escape the operation, and to compensate civilians for property damage.
More importantly, the army should also limit US involvement in the form of sustained drone attacks in any operation. This must be Pakistan’s fight, fought on Pakistan’s terms, with Pakistan’s best interests in mind.
Here are some impressions of the Waziri tribes described by retired Pakistani Brigadier Marghoob Qadir as published in Daily Times:
The people belonging to the tribal belt that girdles Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the west live with an inexplicable mix of chivalry, banditry, personal liberty and tribal customs. It was 1985, I was commanding a unit in Kohat and we were travelling from Thal to Miranshah. I had ordered the regulation armed escort to stay put in Thal Fort. I knew it was irregular and quite risky also, but I had always regarded that such escorts, being cumbersome, normally impede speed and are at risk themselves. We were travelling through wild Waziristan practically bare handed. However, I had quietly slipped a service revolver into the jeep’s dashboard just in case. A few miles out of Thal, we saw a man sitting under a distant tree pointing his Kalashnikov at something directly above. As we got closer, he fired and whatever was left of a poor sparrow floated lifelessly to the ground below. Satisfied with his marksmanship he rolled his sheet, placed it under his head and lay down for a leisurely catnap.
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We were negotiating a narrow and hilly tract of road short of Miranshah, when a rifle shot rang out from very close range. Then the second shot and a piece of rock scattered into bits as the bullet hit the rock face inches above the jeep bonnet. I told the driver to stop, climbed out of the jeep and looked straight into the barrel of a rifle pointed at me by a young Waziri a few yards up the opposite slope. There was a short verbal exchange in Pashto between the two of us and then we resumed our journey to Miranshah. It transpired that by firing those ‘near miss’ shots, the Wiziri youngster wanted to find out if we were afraid or not. Admittedly, I countered him by saying that he would also be scared if the same weapon were aimed at him without a fair chance. The boy understood and gave up further confirmation of my valour or fear.
En route, we had stopped for a cup of tea in a sprawling fort manned by scouts. It was a treat in old style hospitality and was altogether overwhelming. The scouts in that fort observed a strange water collection ritual every day at a given time. They had shared the only water spring some distance outside the fort with a neighbouring Waziri village ever since the fort was built in British times. The water filled up in a large but open ground level cemented water tank. Under a treaty concluded between the Waziri villagers and the British, the Waziris were conceded the right to collect water in the early part of the day. The scouts would do so in the afternoon. Fearing treachery, the British thought of a brilliantly inexpensive and simple test. A pair of white swans is officially kept and trained by the fort scouts. As the fort door opens for the water collection party, this pair of swans marches out towards the water tank, leading. Dipping their beaks in the water tank they drink till their pouches fill. The scouts’ party commander would observe them keenly for a few minutes for any signs of poisoning. If found in good health, the party would collect water in their containers and march back into the fort with the swans leading. Proper funds were allocated for the maintenance of this pair of swans, we were told.
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They hold their privacy, which has to be understood in the broadest possible terms as being very dear to them. An actual or perceived trespass can have grave consequences. Their concept of privacy roughly corresponds to the modern day notion of sovereignty. For example, to pass through a Waziri village in a high-strung military truck is to trespass. To chance upon a female water-filling point is a serious infringement and so on. It may be understood that the Waziri concept of privacy is actually a function of perception more than the action.
"In case you haven’t been following the news: last year’s parliamentary election was so chaotic and flawed that it resulted in the near-total disenfranchisement of Afghanistan’s Pashtun ethnic minority, which makes up a healthy 40 percent of the population. Many Pashtuns either didn’t vote, because of sympathy or support for the Taliban and dislike of the Afghan government, or couldn’t vote, because of Taliban threats and violence. As a result, in some provinces in the south and east where Pashtuns dominate, not a single Pashtun was elected to parliament. For Karzai, that was a disaster, especially since he’s trying to reach out to his Pashtun base as part of his search for a deal with the Taliban and its allies. Earlier this year, a special court appointed by Karzai ruled that sixty-two members of parliament, mostly non-Pashtuns, were elected fraudulently, a step toward installing Pashtun members in their place. Not surprisingly, Karzai’s opponents in parliament, especially Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras who oppose Karzai’s outreach to the Taliban, cried foul, challenged the constitutionality of the court, and demanded the impeachment of Karzai.
If the war in Afghanistan ever made any sense at all, this stuff makes it clear that it's close to hopeless."
http://www.truth-out.org/union-workers-replaced-prison-labor-under-scott-walkers-collective-bargaining-law/1310045144
Government in Afghanistan Nears Collapse
A truly rare, historic short film shot by the narrator, an RAF officer posted in Waziristan in the 1930's.
Not much has really changed since including the Americans and NATO forces now re-learning the same lessons
the British did starting over a 100 years ago.
http://airminded.org/2010/04/20/wings-over-waziristan/
The article, despite similar content, is also worth a read.
This is a BBC interview with Group Captain Robert Lister, recorded in 1980, about his experiences as a junior officer in 20 Squadron on the North-West Frontier. He transferred there in 1935, and flew Audaxes in air control operations against Waziri tribespeople, sometimes in support of the Army, sometimes independently. He candidly notes that the 250-lb bombs were the ones which would be used against villages, but also that leaflets were invariably dropped beforehand, warning of an imminent attack.
But the clip isn't just Lister talking; it's Lister talking over his own cinefilm footage from 1935! Both from the ground and from the air, bombing and strafing Waziri villages. Also to be seen are the detonation of an improvised explosive device planted in the landing strip by the rebels, and one of the goolie chits affixed to the side of every Audax, to be used in the event of a forced landing. Fascinating stuff.
http://airminded.org/2010/04/20/wings-over-waziristan/
Here's an interesting Reuters' blog post talking about Pakistan nuclear weapons as a deterrent not just against India but also the United States:
Pakistan’s nuclear weapons have been conceived and developed as a deterrent against mighty neighbour India, more so now when its traditional rival has added economic heft to its military muscle. But Islamabad may also be holding onto its nuclear arsenal to deter an even more powerful challenge, which to its mind, comes from the United States, according to Bruce Riedel, a former CIA officer who led President Barack Obama’s 2009 policy review on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Pakistan and the United States are allies in the war against militancy, but ties have been so troubled in recent years that some in Pakistan believe that the risk of a conflict cannot be dismissed altogether and that the bomb may well be the country’s only hedge against an America that looks less a friend and more a hostile power.
Last year the Obama administration said there could be consequences if the next attack in the West were to be traced backed to Pakistan, probably the North Waziristan hub of al Qaeda, the Taliban and other militant groups.No nation can ignore a warning as chilling as that, and it is reasonable to expect the Pakistan military to do what it can to defend itself.
Riedel in a piece in The Wall Street Journal says Pakistan’s army chief Ashfaq Kayani may well have concluded that the only way to hold off a possible American military action is the presence of nuclear weapons on its soil and hence the frenetic race to increase the size of the arsenal to the point that Pakistan is on track to become the fourth largest nuclear power after the United States, Russia and China.
Last month’s military action in Libya, the third Muslim nation attacked by the United States in the ten years since 9/11, can only heighten anxieties in Pakistan. Indeed Libya holds an opposite lesson for Pakistan’s security planners. This is a country that gave up a nuclear weapons programme - ironically assisted by Pakistan’s disgraced nuclear scientist A.Q.Khan – under a deal with the West following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Suppose for a moment that Colonel Muammar Gaddafi had held on its nuclear weapons, would there have been air strikes then ?
Indeed none of the three countries attacked by the United States had nuclear weapons including, as it turned out, Iraq although the whole idea of invading it was to eliminate the weapons of mass destruction. You could further argue that this perhaps is the one reason why the United States hasn’t taken on North Korea because of its advanced nuclear programme with a bomb or two in the basement.
Kayani and the generals have therefore concluded the only reason the United States may hesitate to use force against Pakistan, should ties break down completely, will be because of the 100-odd weapons it has. It only makes sense to expand it further to make the Americans think twice before launching an action.
But such nuclear brinkmanship cannot come without consequences of its own, and one of them will be India reviewing its nuclear posture. A Pakistan battling a deadly Islamist militancy and beset with economic difficulties but on a fast track to expand its nuclear weapons programme is a nightmare scenario. Riedel says India has exercised restraint on its weapons program me, but seeing an acceleration in the Pakistani efforts, it may well step up production of its own.....
http://blogs.reuters.com/afghanistan/2011/04/09/pakistans-nuclear-weapons-a-deterrent-against-india-but-also-united-states/
Pakistan Army documentary Glorious Resolve wins international award, according to PakistanToday:
Rawalpindi - Inter Services Public Relations documentary has won the first prize in the recently held International Film Festival “Eserciti-e-Popoli” (Army and People) held at Bracciano, Rome (Italy). The festival saw the participation of NATO and 24 Countries with 60 films grouped into several categories: from institutional training information to environmental protection to humanitarian missions for peace. The films, produced by renowned film makers were evaluated an qualified and experienced jury. The Pakistan Army’s documentary “Glorious Resolve” received the Jury’s Special award from the President of the Italian Senate with the citation “A technically outstanding and emotionally powerful dramatisation of the story of the courageous soldiers under fire in a dire combat situation”. The award given by Gen. Giancarlo Fortuna, the President of the International Jury was received by a representative of the Pakistani Embassy in Rome. ‘Glorious Resolve’ was a joint venture of ISPR and Mindworks Media. Brigadier Syed Azmat Ali was Executive Producer whereas Brig Syed Mujtaba Tirmizi was Executive Director of the film.
Lieutenant Colonel Irfan Aziz was project director and the writer of this film which was directed by Sarosh Kayani. Mindworks Media Dr Hassan Waqas Rana was the producer whereas Bilal Lashari was Director of Photography. Based on a true operational account, Glorious Resolve highlights the tale of infantry soldiers, who fought when 1,500 militants raided a section-level outpost of an Infantry Battalion in South Waziristan Agency on the night of 29 May 2009. The documentary focuses on the sacrifices and achievements of the Pakistan Army in its resolve to end terrorism in Pakistan. It shows how 43 Punjab Regiment soldiers were killed and two stood ground till reinforcements arrived.
http://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2011/11/the-pakistan-army-great-filmmakers/
Pakistani political parties campaigning in FATA for the first time in history, reports Miami Herald:
For the first time ever, political parties have started campaigning for votes in the militant-infested tribal areas of Pakistan that border Afghanistan, ahead of a general election likely within the next 12 months.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in August lifted a 64-year ban on political party activity in the seven federally administered tribal areas, saying the reforms would help defeat the "militant mindset" there.
However, the politicians leading party campaigns in the tribal areas fear that intimidation by the Taliban and human rights abuses by Pakistani security authorities could make a free and fair election virtually impossible.
In the tribal areas, "there is no political government, but one run by the security authorities ... who are responsible for the widespread disappearances of residents suspected of involvement in the insurgency," said Maulana Rahat Hussain, a former senator.
"As long as power remains delegated to them, the democratic process won't work," he said.
Hussain is leading electioneering in the tribal areas for the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, or JUI. The country's most popular religious party, the JUI is a former ally of the Pakistani Taliban that broke with the group when it launched an insurgency in 2007. The Taliban subsequently started suicide attacks against the party's leadership, killing several prominent cleric-politicians, and only just missing its chief, Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman.
The JUI has held political rallies across the tribal areas over the last two weeks, including one at Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban insurgents.
The mountainous Dattakhel area neighboring Mir Ali is also a haven for fugitive al Qaida leaders and has been a focal point of U.S. drone strikes since 2009.
Hussain said the Taliban distributed pamphlets in the area warning residents not to attend the rally in Mir Ali and threatened him personally. Photographs of JUI cleric-politicians in the company of women in fancy clothes — taken at a wedding — were also distributed in an attempt to defame them among their conservative base, he added.
Nonetheless, the JUI rally attracted an estimated 15,000 tribesmen, local journalists said.
JUI candidates — contesting as independents because of the ban on parties — won National Assembly seats in North Waziristan and neighboring South Waziristan in 1997 and 2008, the first elections held in the tribal areas in which all adults were allowed to vote. In practice, however, that meant only that males could vote, because tribal traditions prevented women from casting ballots.
Despite Zardari's reforms, the estimated 5 million residents of the region are still governed largely by 19th century British colonial laws and don't enjoy the fundamental rights guaranteed by Pakistan's constitution.
Most power remains in the hands of administrators known as political agents, who enforce law and order through tribal and clan councils that, in turn, are collectively responsible for the areas they live in. The agents use paramilitary forces to punish the clans and tribes, often by levying massive fines, demolishing homes and barring them access to settled areas of Pakistan, politicians said.
The reforms have set up an appeals process for residents to contest abuses, but only to a tribunal headed by a senior civil servant. They continue to have no access to Pakistan's Supreme Court — which would leave politicians no legal recourse to contest voting irregularities, secular parties said.........
Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/30/2615874/parties-campaign-in-pakistans.html
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