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Musharraf finds surprising allies

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has found unlikely new allies in pro-Taliban tribesmen who are driving foreign al-Qaeda militants from Pakistan's tribal belt for the first time, officials said.

Local sources said the government had covertly armed and helped Pakistani tribesmen during battles this week against Uzbek insurgents in mountainous South Waziristan. At least 114 people have died.

Pakistan denied supporting them but openly approved of their actions, especially when the US, Musharraf's key backer, is pressuring him to crush alleged al-Qaeda sanctuaries along the Afghan border.

"Local tribesmen are fed up and these moves show they want their areas clear from foreigners who were creating all sorts of problems," Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said.

"It is the success of the policy the government pursued in the region for the betterment of tribal people," he said.

A government source in Wana, South Waziristan, went further, saying the fighting "is an offshoot of Pakistan's newly adopted strategy to drive al-Qaeda-linked foreigners out of the region."

Devout Muslim tribesmen in South Waziristan reportedly sheltered hundreds of mainly Arab and Uzbek al-Qaeda extremists who fled Afghanistan after US-led forces ousted the Taliban regime in 2001 for failing to hand over Osama bin Laden.

Pakistani forces launched military operations there in 2004 to expel the foreigners, but since the government signed a peace deal with rebels in 2005, US officials said new al-Qaeda facilities have sprung up.

Tensions have however arisen between the locals and Uzbek militant chief Tahir Yuldashev, head of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and once a close confidant of bin Laden. He was injured by the army in 2004.

Followers of Yuldashev were at the center of the battles that started on Monday after a local former Taliban commander, Mullah Nazir, ordered them to disarm.

Earlier this month, clashes sparked by an assassination attempt on a tribal elder left 15 people dead.

Then last Sunday, the body of an Arab was found lying near Wana bazaar and Nazir's followers blamed the Uzbeks.

The next day the bodies of two Uzbeks were found nearby with their throats slit.

The chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, which so far has lost more than 700 soldiers in its anti-al-Qaeda operations, said it was "not interfering" in the clashes.

"But it is a positive sign that the tribesmen have decided to fight these foreign militants and their backers, who were a source of trouble there," spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said.

Security officials said the Uzbeks, who number between 1,000 and 2,000, were involved in the kind of "trouble" that US Vice President Dick Cheney warned of in a recent visit, including training militants and facilitating attacks in Afghanistan.

But the government sources in Wana said that a key cause of this week's fighting was Islamabad's new strategy of supplying "intelligence, arms and money to Taliban fighters loyal to the government."

One source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that prior to the conflict a "good number of fighters who look like Punjabis joined the ranks of Mullah Nazir" and brought arms and money.

The source was apparently referring to extremist jihadis, many of whom hail from the central province of Punjab, who infiltrated the area and started renting houses near Uzbek neighborhoods.

It would not be the first time Pakistan has used Islamic militants to further its goals, even though Musharraf has apparently cracked down on those who once fought in Indian-held Kashmir and in Afghanistan.

Musharraf himself has escaped two assassination attempts by al-Qaeda militants and disenchanted jihadis.

However Musharraf needs to balance pressure from Western countries and forces in Afghanistan with the domestic unhappiness that costly further army operations might cause.

The president is also busy with the biggest domestic political crisis since he seized power in a 1999 coup, caused by his clumsy attempt to remove Pakistan's chief justice.

Retired Brigadier Mahmood Shah, secretary for security affairs in the tribal areas from 2002 until last year, said Musharraf should "take advantage of the situation."

"The government should openly or secretly side with the local tribes. It should help them with money or weapons," Shah said.

"If it lends some support it will create an ideal situation to force the foreign militants out."
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