Word: tribal
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...State Department designated the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) as a terrorist group. Concrete information on such groups is hard to come by. The consensus is that a small group of separatists - probably fewer than 40, according to Gunaratna - is being trained under the ETIM umbrella in the tribal areas of Pakistan that line the 1,300-mile (2,092 km) border with Afghanistan. ETIM is the only group that is capable of carrying out an attack in China in the next few weeks, says Gunaratna, who heads the Singapore-based International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research...
Much of this exasperation, echoed by Western diplomats in Islamabad, stems from the government's decision to negotiate a series of peace deals with the Pakistani Taliban in the rugged tribal areas and across swathes of the North-West Frontier Province. "It is clear that the deals have led to a rise in cross-border attacks," says a senior Western diplomat, echoing other critics, "and [those in Islamabad] just seem to be turning a blind eye to them...
...There's a hint of the showman about Marwani, a handsome former lawyer in a snow-white robe, with a traditional dagger in his belt. His eyes well with tears as he describes how a tribal woman, wounded when a gun misfired at a wedding celebration, was deemed unmarriageable by her tribe. She sought sanctuary at Dar al-Salaam, later marrying one of the organization's 3,200 volunteers...
...culture still rules in huge swaths of Yemen, where tribal traditions are strong and the judiciary is weak. Many "don't believe in the law, so they take revenge using their own arms," says Marwani. Blood feuds over anything from a pilfered cow to a perceived slight account for an estimated 1,200 revenge killings a year. Entire families become targets for retaliation, leaving parents scared to send children to school and farmers afraid to till their crops. Revenge killing is "a main obstacle for investment, for development and for democracy," says Noor Mohamed Baabad, Yemen's Deputy Minister...
...Marwani, meanwhile, has widened his organization's remit from tribal violence to Islamist extremism. "The terrorists convince people that if they blow themselves up, they go to paradise," he says. "We sell people paradise through peace...