Word: mehsuds
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...observing a four-day truce in Bajaur, the tribal area along the Afghan border that has seen the fiercest fighting in Pakistan's domestic campaign against extremists. And on a more ominous note, last weekend at an undisclosed location deep in Waziristan's mountains, Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud forged a new alliance with two rival commanders who had been fighting him with backing by the government...
...also illustrated by the U.S.'s use of drones to target two groups of militants, led by Maulvi Nazir and Hafiz Gul Bahadar, based in Waziristan. These men, from the Ahmedzai Wazir tribe, which straddles the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, had formed an alliance with the Pakistani army against Mehsud and other militants. In fact, backed by the army, Nazir and his men had routed some 250 al-Qaeda-aligned Uzbek militants from Wana, in South Waziristan, in 2004. But despite their nonaggression pact with the Pakistani military, both men continued to mount cross-border attacks on U.S. and NATO troops...
...That's certainly how Nazir and Bahadar see it. The two men and Mehsud, the militant commander against whom they fought on behalf of the Pakistani military, have now formed an alliance with ambitions on both sides of the border. The Shura Ittehad Mujahedin, or Council of United Jihadists, has declared war on the governments of the U.S., Afghanistan and Pakistan and proclaimed its fealty to Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of the Afghan Taliban. (The Pakistani Taliban has, until now, been a separate if like-minded group.) In this instance, the drone war may actually have strengthened...
...government hopes its peace deal in Swat will drive a wedge between militants there and the stronger, more ambitious Mehsud - and, if successful, that it can be replicated on other fronts. But as is demonstrated by the shifting alliances in Waziristan, the basic problem facing the Pakistani government is that most of the population in the areas it's trying to pacify, while not inherently opposed to the Pakistani state, nonetheless support the principle of fighting the Americans in Afghanistan...
...example, two key Taliban commanders in South Waziristan, Maulvi Muhammad Nazir - who helped the Pakistani army mount an attack on his tribal rival, Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud - and Hafiz Gul Bahadur have nonaggression pacts with the Pakistani army. The military defends these arrangements on the grounds that it is unable to operate in areas where there are "hostile tribes" like Mehsud's and that it is prioritizing offensives in other parts of the border region. Some are unconvinced. "It appears that unless the militants are attacking Pakistani forces, the army doesn't consider them a problem," says one senior...