Word: baluch
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...expected her to be too ashamed to speak about it. They were wrong. In Pakistan's Baluchistan province, nothing is held in higher regard than a woman's honor, and the allegations of rape have the rough-and-tumble province, rich with natural gas fields, up in arms?literally. Baluch tribesmen have attacked a refinery and pumping station at the Sui gas fields, have sabotaged the pipeline that sends the natural gas to the rest of Pakistan, have blown up railway lines, and have rocketed the provincial capital, Quetta. In response, President Pervez Musharraf has sent 4,500 paramilitary troops...
...Baluchistan is the poorest of Pakistan's provinces, and the Baluch have long chafed under Islamabad's rule, accusing the government of exploiting their mineral wealth and giving little back. In the past, successive Islamabad administrations could ignore the region because the Baluch chieftains usually were too busy feuding with each other to trifle with outsiders. These days, they are united, says Mengal: "The resistance will be in all corners of Baluchistan...
...Musharraf can ill afford a drawn-out guerrilla war in Baluchistan. His armies are already tied down with guarding the India-Pakistan border, while another 70,000 troops are combing the mountains along the Afghan border for al-Qaeda fighters. Yet the government needs to pacify the Baluch warriors. It has plans to expand gas exploration, allow a pipeline to run across Baluchistan from Iran to India, and, with Chinese help, it is building a multimillion dollar port at Gwadar?all of which incenses the Baluch tribesmen who are worried that, once again, they will...
...stronghold lies in the tribal band along the Afghan border. Its Baluch and Pashtun supporters are ethnically and ideologically tied to the former Taliban rulers in Afghanistan, thus their anti-Americanism. The region is where Pakistani and U.S. intelligence officers believe many al-Qaeda fighters, possibly even Osama bin Laden, may be holed up. Guns are in plentiful supply. Basha Kamal from Khana-Khel village, in the hills behind the turquoise Indus River, slaps his hip and says: "Of course I carry an automatic pistol. That doesn't mean I'm a terrorist." He adds, "But I refuse...
...since Sept 11th, because the Taliban commanders who'd stockpiled tons of opium were nervously selling it off), and then the conversation turned to the dud Cruise missiles which had landed around Kandahar. These traders shifted eagerly on their stacks of plum-dark Bokharas and somber tribal Baluch carpets...