A war of words erupted in Pakistan’s tribal belt on Thursday as pro-government tribal commanders fired verbal salvoes against the embattled Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud while the army pressed ahead with its plans to invade his South Waziristan lair.
Qari Zainuddin, a fellow Mehsud tribesmen who has risen from obscurity in recent months, accused the warlord of being an Indian and Israeli agent.
“He is working against Islam,” he told Geo television.
Another commander, Turkistan Bhittani, launched a more fanciful slur - that Baitullah, who has a US$5 million US government bounty on his head, is in the secret employ of Washington.
The comments underscored the tangled web of jihadi politics and personalities facing Pakistan’s army as it prepares for a battle that could determine the future of Pakistan. They came as missiles fired from what is thought to have been a US drone were reported to have killed nine militants in South Waziristan.
Mehsud, the leader of Pakistan’s largest Taliban grouping, has become the country’s top hate figure for launching suicide attacks and allegedly orchestrating the assassination of former Pakistani prime minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007.
His mountainous stronghold is also home to hundreds of al-Qaeda fighters, possibly including Osama bin Laden, although most experts believe he is hiding further north in the tribal belt.
Fresh from its success in Swat, where the Taliban have been driven from the main towns, the Pakistani army hopes to isolate Mehsud in South Waziristan through a combination of military strikes and alliances with friendly tribal commanders.
The newly aggressive approach has won generous praise from a previously sceptical US government. But while tribal allies such as Zainuddin oppose Mehsud, they also support al-Qaeda and fight Western troops in Afghanistan.
“We have reservations that this is going to work,” said a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad.
The operation has unofficially started, with troops imposing an economic blockade on Mehsud territory, sealing off approach roads and rounding up supporters. Helicopters and warplanes have pounded targets in Janni Khel district on the fringe of Waziristan.
Anwar Kamal Marwat, a tribal leader from the nearby district of Lakki Marwat, witnessed the violence.
“There was no hand to hand fighting. It was all artillery and air attacks,” he said.
Women and children fleeing the fighting had been permitted to shelter in his area, a traditional courtesy in tribal warfare.
The Mehsud campaign is likely to be far tougher, and bloodier, than the six-week Swat operation.
“It will be long, and too many people will die on both sides,” said Sailab Mehsud, a veteran local journalist.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done