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Pakistan’s Tribes Prepare for War
Tuesday, September 25, 2001
The Associated Press

A protester pledging support to Afghanistan's ruling Taliban holds a poster during an anti-U.S. rally in Islamabad on Tuesday.

Armed tribesmen from rugged border lands ready to fight U.S.

TEMARGARH, Pakistan -- MSNBC
In a large swath of untamed land in Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province, small armies of tribesmen have began to mobilize for a war to defend their ethnic kin, the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan. This wild no-man’s-land, where guns and drugs are a way of life and the government’s writ extends only nominally among the estimated 7 million ethnic Pashtun inhabitants, could prove a bedrock of support for Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban in any U.S.-led attack.

Across the so-called tribal belt that straddles the porous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, clan leaders have been convening jirgahs, or meetings, where decisions are taken based on Pushtunwali, the unshakable tribal code of behavior.

It demands death before dishonor and collective defense of fellow Pashtuns. “Our law is clear: An attack on one of us is an attack on all,” said Malik Ramdad Khan, a tribal leader in the Nawagi region of the frontier.

“Since Friday we have enlisted 30,000 men to go fight in Afghanistan, and we are expecting more,” he said. “There are 100,000 homes in our area, and each home will send at least one male. That is our law.”

Some 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population is Pashtun, and the Taliban have their greatest support in the south, where the Pashtuns dominate both sides of the border with Pakistan.
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Dan