Military presence angers tribes
By Kathy Gannon
The Associated Press

May 5, 2002

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan · U.S. Special Forces scouring Pakistan's lawless frontier region for fugitive Taliban and al-Qaida have angered heavily armed tribesmen, who warn they are ready to do battle if the American soldiers don't leave soon.

President Pervez Musharraf said Saturday that the U.S. deployment consists of "hardly a dozen" communications specialists. But tribal leaders say dozens of U.S. forces are involved in the searches, with the main zone of operation apparently being the southern end of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, a semiautonomous region along the Afghan border.

"People are very angry. They have closed down the bazaars in Miran Shah before. They don't want the Americans here. Anything can happen," said Farmadullah, a member of a regional security force made up of men chosen and armed by the various tribes. Like many Pakistanis, he uses one name.

The tribes were inflamed by Pakistan's decision a month ago to let U.S. forces join Pakistani forces in the search for Taliban and al-Qaida thought to be hiding in the area, where people practice a deeply conservative version of Islam.

The fact that the Americans would only be part of joint patrols did nothing to mollify the fiercely independent tribesmen, who before the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan had never allowed the Pakistan army into their territory.

"It will be a civil war. It is what the Americans want, to create such a situation to destabilize Pakistan," said Ajab Khan, 67, owner of a small variety store in Bannu, a tribal town about 25 miles northeast of Miran Shah.

"We're the strongest of all the tribes. Be careful. People are angry and they can do anything," said Waheed, 28, squatting outside a grand mosque with pale pink minarets selling a traditional sweet dish.

Last week's raid by a joint U.S. and Pakistani military force on a religious school, or madrassa, in Miran Shah was a special sore point.

In Mir Ali, another tribal town, barely 10 miles from Miran Shah, Islamic clerics with voluminous turbans and shaggy, unkempt beards on Saturday told hundreds of men with ammunition gunbelts strapped to their chests, and rocket launchers and machine guns by their sides, to be ready to do battle if another madrassa is raided by joint U.S. and Pakistani soldiers.

"We will not allow any American soldier or Pakistani soldier to enter our madrassas. It is against our tradition, against our religion," Mohammed Dinda told the heavily armed audience gathered at Mir Ali's Nizamia-ul Aloom madrassa.

On Saturday:

Canadians part of attack: Canadian troops took part in an air assault on Saturday into a mountainous area of eastern Afghanistan, the second major operation of the week in pursuit of the remnants of al-Qaida and Taliban forces.

Several hundred Canadian infantry soldiers, along with a number of American and local Afghan troops, were deployed by helicopter from Bagram Air Base, north of Kabul in Afghanistan, said Col. John Collin, the senior Canadian officer in Afghanistan.

The Canadian-led operation to gather intelligence and clear an area of al-Qaida and Taliban militants will run simultaneously with the British one in southeastern Afghanistan that began Monday. Military officials said the latest operation was not connected with the British one but said both were part of a campaign to deny al-Qaida sympathizers the ability to operate in Afghanistan.

The British were pushing forward with their sweep on Saturday, but after covering 20 percent of their targeted area, they reported no contact with the militants, and their only discovery was 2,000 rounds of rifle ammunition in a cave, a spokesman said.

Information from The New York Times was used to supplement this report.

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