Word: tribalization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Sheik Hamid al-Hayess is not optimistic. A burly man with a thick black mustache and closely knitted brows, he is one of the founding members of the Anbar Awakening. The grouping of Sunni tribal sheiks in the once al-Qaeda-infested western province turned against the insurgents and sided with the U.S. military, providing the model for what became a nationwide campaign known as the Sahwa. But that model is in trouble. "The Sahwa has been infiltrated by al-Qaeda," he says somberly. "A civil war is coming...
There's been a marked uptick in violence over the past month across the country, especially in majority Sunni western and northern Baghdad neighborhoods that used to be insurgent strongholds. Almost 200 people were killed in March, many in attacks targeting the security forces or tribal leaders in these largely Sunni areas of the country, including the restive northern city of Mosul, a reflection of the insurgency's new target list...
...Pakistan Taliban commander, is also widely suspected of mounting the attack on the cricket team. Other names floated include Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group blamed for the Mumbai massacre, and Jaish-e-Mohammed, another such group that has fought in Kashmir and more recently in Pakistan's tribal areas. Given the chilling similarities in the tactics deployed in the two attacks in Lahore, many analysts believe the same group could have been involved. All these militant organizations have a strong presence in the country's richest province, Punjab...
...attack on the police cadets underscores the growing threat that Islamist militancy poses to Pakistan on a widening geographic scale. It comes just days after a suicide bomber attacked a mosque on the edge of Pakistan's tribal areas, killing more than 70 in one of the deadliest attacks the country has seen in recent months. The city of Lahore was long considered immune to terrorism strikes, but it suffered its first suicide bombing in January 2008. With the second full-frontal attack in less than a month, there are fears that the militants are training their sights on Pakistan...
Another possibility, Nawaz says, is that the warlords and the Taliban are getting help from contractors hired in the tribal areas by the ISI. "These are people with a history of local relationships, and they are likely to be ambivalent," he says...