Word: waziristan
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...fact, the territory at the heart of Talibanistan--a heavily forested band of mountains that is officially called North and South Waziristan--has never fully submitted to the rule of any country. The colonial British were unable to conquer the region's Pashtun tribes and allowed them to run their own affairs according to local custom. In exchange, the tribesmen protected the subcontinental empire from northern invaders. Following independence in 1947, Pakistan continued the arrangement...
...part of peace accords signed last September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, the Pakistani military agreed to take down roadblocks, stop patrols and return to their barracks. In exchange, local militants promised not to attack troops and to end cross-border raids into Afghanistan. The accords came in part because the Pakistani army was simply unable to tame the region. Over the past two years, it has lost more than 700 troops there. The change in tactics, says Gul, was an admission that the Pakistani military had "lost the game...
...purpose in the pretty southeastern Afghanistan farming town was to report a story about cross-border terrorism. About 13 miles away, in Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal agency, lies Mir Ali, near which several Taliban training camps are said to be based. "That's the center of international terrorism," said our host Hajji Faisel Rahman Muslim. Whether or not that's true, many Khost residents are convinced that the town is the Qaeda headquarters responsible for the plague of suicide bombings (some 20 this year) that have rocked Khost...
...peace accord signed last September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, the Pakistani government agreed to scale down its operations in the area if local militants would refrain from attacking government troops and would end cross-border raids into Afghanistan. On that front, the agreement has clearly failed - cross-border attacks have increased threefold since September, according to U.S. military officials. Many of those have been bomb attacks on government officials and police officers in provincial capitals such as Khost. Last year, Hajji Muslim was nearly killed by a remote-detonated IED that blew apart his car and left...
...National Intelligence Director Michael McConnell believes al-Qaeda is regaining a foothold in the border area of Waziristan. He told the Senate Armed Services Committee on Feb. 27 that "to the best of our knowledge, the senior leadership, No. 1 and No. 2, are there, and they are attempting to re-establish and rebuild." Tasneem Aslam, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, says Pakistan is policing the region with 80,000 troops, some 800 of whom have died in skirmishes with militants. "We are doing our utmost to stop the cross-border activity," Aslam says. "What are the Afghans doing...