Word: wazir
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...fair, Pakistan's new government came into power after the military, at the behest of Musharraf, decided to negotiate with militants. The administration embraced the peace effort in the hope that diplomacy would succeed where force had failed. Perhaps over time the accords would have worked. Says Ayaz Wazir, a former Pakistani ambassador who hails from Waziristan: "We have a saying in Pashto [the local language], that if you fight for 100 years, on the last day you will again sit around the table and find a solution. So why not just start...
...suicide bomber struck the Afghan capital today, killing two, injuring four, and highlighting once again the devastating decline in security that has wracked Kabul over the past year. Windows shattered under the force of the explosion across the tony district of Wazir Akbar Khan, home to several embassies and foreign aid agencies. The bomber, who rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into a convoy of armored land cruisers taking foreign forces through the neighborhood, appeared to be targeting U.S.-led coalition soldiers. His vehicle was completely incinerated; all that remained was a charred gasoline engine. Two of the three land cruisers...
...Khan was called the Fakir of Ipi, after the Wazir town where he was said to exercise divine powers-like turning sticks into guns and feeding multitudes with a few loaves of bread. Flying the banner of "Islam in Danger," his small lashkars, or war bands, ambushed convoys and raided prominent towns, killing Hindu traders and marching off with money and munitions. For colonial officials in London and New Delhi, this was no minor uprising of petty bandits. Intelligence estimates at the time counted 400,000 fighting men among the various Pashtun tribes, at least half of them armed with...
...Western troops in Afghanistan, according to tribal elders in the region. With cash and religious fervor, they lure young men to join their battle and threaten local leaders so they will deliver the support of their tribes. Malik Haji Awar Khan, 55, head of the 2,000-strong Mutakhel Wazir tribe of North Waziristan, was approached a year ago to join the Taliban cause. When he refused, militants kidnapped his teenage sons. "They thought they could make me join them, but I am tired of fighting," says Khan, who battled alongside the Afghan mujahedin in the war against the Soviets...
...emergence of Talibanistan may directly threaten the West too. Locals say the region has become one big terrorist-recruitment camp, where people as young as 17 are trained as suicide bombers. "Here, teenagers are greeted with the prayers 'May Allah bless you to become a suicide bomber,'" says Obaidullah Wazir, 35, a young tribesman in Miranshah. National Intelligence Director John McConnell told the Senate Armed Services Committee last month that "al-Qaeda is forging stronger operational connections that radiate outward from their camps in Pakistan to affiliated groups and networks throughout the Middle East, North Africa and Europe." Muzafar Khan...