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India-Pakistan

Turis accused of fomenting insurgency in Kurram Agency

2009-06-27

[The News (Pak)] Elders of six tribes of the Kurram Agency have demanded of President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and NWFP Governor Owais Ahmed Ghani to take serious notice of the activities of the Turi tribe allegedly involved in fomenting insurgency in the violence-hit area. Addressing a joint press conference at the Sadda Press Club on Thursday, former MNAs Haji Zareen Khan Mangal and Zulfikar Ali Chamkani and other elders of the tribes including Haji Saleem Khan Orakzai, Malik Mir Badshah Masozai, Haji Rai Khan Khoidadkhel, Malik Mir Akbar, Malik Saifullah Khan Masozai, Haji Sher Khan, Haji Gul Zaman, Fazal Hameed and Abdul Kareem Abid alleged that the Indian consulates in Afghanistan were supporting the Turi tribesmen, who were involved in the endless violence in the area. They alleged that hundreds of Turi tribesmen had been recruited in the Indian consulates in Afghanistan where they were being trained, funded and supplied sophisticated arms. The elders alleged that they were not only involved in insurgency and terrorism in the Kurram Agency but also across the country. They said the Turi tribesmen was trying to hide their anti-state activities by claiming themselves as innocent in the media but it was on the government record that they had deliberately spoiled the peaceful atmosphere in the area. They said the six tribes of the Kurram Agency never challenged the writ of the government in the past while the Turi tribe took law into their hands and there was no sign of governance in Upper Kurram. They asked as to who killed Political Agent Taj Muhammad Khan, Assistant Political Agent Masoodur Rehman and other officials in the past. They said the Turi tribe was trying to prove itself innocent. They alleged that the Turi tribe had expelled thousands of innocent people of the six tribes from their own villages and homes in the past. They said they had not closed the main road but the armed men of the Turi tribe were behind the blockade for the last two years in Alizai and Marukhel areas and even the government officials were not allowed to travel. They said the people of the six tribes had been travelling to Kohat and Peshawar through the mountainous areas. It's all the fault o'them damned Turis. It's time we had us a proper feud!

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Afghanistan

Key tribal leader on verge of deserting Taliban

2007-10-30

An Afghan tribal leader is in talks to defect from the Taliban and take thousands of armed tribesmen with him to fight alongside British forces in southern Afghanistan. The Daily Telegraph has learned that the Afghan government hopes to seal the deal this week with Mullah Abdul Salaam and his Alizai tribe, which has been fighting alongside the Taliban in Helmand province. I've been waiting for us to do the tribal relations thing in Afghanistan as we've done with the Sunnis in Iraq. They're different situations to be sure, but we ought to be able to wheel and deal with the different subtribes in Pashtunistan, and the Taliban have been every bit as overbearing as al-Qaeda in Iraq. Diplomats confirmed yesterday that Mullah Salaam was expected to change sides within days. He is a former Taliban corps commander and governor of Herat province under the government that fell in 2001. Military sources said British forces in the province are "observing with interest" the potential deal in north Helmand, which echoes the efforts of US commanders in Iraq's western province to split Sunni tribal leaders from their al-Qa'eda allies. The Afghan deal would see members of the Alizai tribe around the Taliban-held town of Musa Qala quit the insurgency and pledge support to the Afghan government. It would be the first time that the Kabul government and its Western allies have been able exploit tribal divisions that exist within the Taliban in southern Afghanistan. Nato forces in Helmand have been monitoring mounting tensions within the Taliban around the towns of Musa Qala and Kajaki. "We have been aware in the last week that guns have been pulled and different armed camps formed within the Taliban in that area," said a military source. According to tribal elders in Helmand and Western diplomats in Kabul, Mullah Salaam had been attempting to negotiate with the Afghan government in secret. But details of the talks were leaked late last week to his erstwhile allies and this reportedly led to a split in the Taliban ranks. Other Taliban leaders have since plotted to assassinate Mullah Salaam. "Mullah Abdul Salaam is very influential and he has the support of thousands of our tribe," said Haji Saleem Khan, the head of the Shura (or tribal council) of the Alizai in Helmand. "When the Taliban found out that he planned to join the government three days ago they tried to kill him. But they have failed. Who wants to be the last man to die for the Taliban? ''These negotiations are still secret. We are going to see the government again today." Ssssshhhhh ....... Another tribal leader in Helmand, Haji Abdul Rahman Sabir, the former provincial police chief, said of Mullah Salaam: "He was a very powerful figure in both the jihad [against the Soviet Union] and also the Taliban time. He is being protected by his tribe. There are 200 fighters around his house and they are waiting for support from the government. It is very important that the government helps." A Western diplomat said that President Hamid Karzai had asked Nato forces to intervene in support of Mullah Salaam, but so far no Nato troops have been committed. Lt Col Richard Eaton, a spokesman for British forces in Helmand, said: "The solution in counter insurgency is always ultimately political. The military can set conditions but there must be a political process and in Afghanistan that will always include a tribal dynamic." Tribal friction and competition for power and resources in Helmand underpins the insurgent violence that has engulfed the province. The Itzakzai tribe in particular have been key Taliban supporters, principally because they have felt excluded from both provincial power and the province's lucrative drugs trade since 2001. Some sections of the Alizai, by contrast, have been dominant within both the drugs trade and provincial power structures. Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, the former provincial governor who was allegedly a kingpin in the local drugs trade, was an Alizai. However, within the Alizai are three sub-tribes and it is one of these, the Pirzai Alizai, that Mullah Salaam controls around Musa Qala. The town is a drug-growing area and has been a centre of Taliban power since the collapse of a British-backed truce between the local government and the Taliban in February.

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