Word: khans
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...Dera Ismail Khan traditionally welcoms the Mehsud tribe this time of year, as they vacate their homes in the chilly mountains in favor of the town's warmer plains. But the influx now is seen as fanning the flame of the town's existing ethnic and sectarian tensions. "It changes the dynamic," says Faiysal AliKhan, head of Fida, the main refugee support group in the area. "Dera Ismail Khan is already cash-strapped. There is a shortage of schools and water. There is a lot of crime. Some of the locals are growing resentful. They say that troubles will follow...
...Helping the security effort in Dera Ismail Khan are some of its most unusual residents: the so-called good Taliban. In a small, nondescript house deep inside the town live the successors of the late militant leader, Abdullah Mehsud. Once the object of the army's fury, the group has since rediscovered favor as the enemy's enemy. Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani Taliban leader who was killed in a CIA-operated drone strike in August, had murdered two of their leaders, and they want revenge against his successors. (Read "Are the Taliban Leaders Fighting Among Themselves...
...with Pakistan," says Maulana Sher Muhammad Mehsud. "We have told the police about the threat coming to Dera Ismail Khan, with terrorists entering the city. The police are weak in this regard. They do not recognize these people - we have informants there." All around him, young men with long hair and disheveled beards flaunt a range of weapons. During the conversation, a farouche-looking man emerges, carrying a cleaver dripping with fresh blood. "Don't worry," says one of the gunmen, with a broad and satisfied grin. "They are only slaughtering a lamb...
...militant leader who has mustered a small militia to fight alongside Pakistan's army, is leading it into South Waziristan through his tribe's traditional territory. So far, the Mehsuds have sat out the fight. "Our tribe is against these militants, but they are all afraid," says Maulana Banat Khan Mehsud, another elder of the Abdullah Mehsud group...
...brutality. Instead, there are fierce criticisms of the army's earlier operations, the ruinous peace deals that it left behind and its role in the creation of these factions. "I don't like Baitullah Mehsud at all. He caused all this to happen in the first place," says Dilawar Khan, 50, a teacher from Kotkai village. "But who made these Taliban? It was the army...