With its freshly-built
roads, schools, clinics and wells, the tribal district
of Mohmand along the Afghan border is a showpiece for
the Pakistan armed forces.
Just 200 kilometres further south in Waziristan, the military
is engaged in a bloody conflict with local tribesmen sheltering
Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who have fled over the
border from Afghanistan.
But in Mohmand, some 50 kilometres northwest of Peshawar,
the soldiers see themselves more as aid workers than fighters.
‘We have asked the Army to help us out of our misery,’
said local chief Mohammed Ali Halimazai in the village
of Khalanai, which for the past year has been the local
headquarters of the military.
‘Our children need development, we no longer want
to be considered backward,’ said the tribal chief,
accompanied by around 20 other local chiefs who were invited
by the Army to meet foreign journalists on a rare Press
trip to the area.In the middle of this region of jagged
peaks and arid plateau, some 400,000 people from six different
tribes live in extreme poverty and isolation.
‘For decades we have been left alone, but now all
that is gone,’ explained Malik Ashraf, a wizened
old man with a white beard and a revolver strapped to
his waist.
He is the chief of a village bearing his name, Ashrafabad,
where he has given the military some land to build a school.
The buildings has no furniture or teachers yet, but nonetheless
around a dozen kids were lined up for the Press and military
to recite the alphabet.
A few metres away, two wells are being dug. ‘Before,
the villagers had to walk 20 kilometres to fetch water,’
said General Mohammed Iqbal, the commander of the brigade
in charge of development aid for Mohmand. So far around
100 kilometres of roads have been built, along with dozens
of schools and clinics, and around 200 wells.
Most of the projects have been built and financed by the
military. While the Army refuses to divulge figures, the
local civilian administration estimates it has spent around
784 million rupees ($15.3 million) on development projects
this year.
Mohmand was the last of the seven tribal agencies that
the military entered in June 2003. Since the founding
of Pakistan in 1947, the tribal areas had existed largely
outside the control of the government in Islamabad.
But the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the
aftermath of the September 11 attacks, coupled with Pakistan’s
strong support for the US-led war on terror, have eroded
much of the tribal areas’ autonomy. In an attempt
to prevent Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants crossing between
Pakistan and Afghanistan, the military occupied the eight
major passes connecting the two countries.
‘There is no longer a no-go area,’ said General
Iqbal, referring to the territory held by the Baezai and
Khewazai tribes along the frontier. For over a year the
Pakistani border posts have come under sporadic artillery
fire from Afghan militias or what the military calls ‘miscreants’,
but Iqbal said there had been not a single attack during
the past week.
Standing side-by-side with soldiers, the local chiefs
in Mohmand insist there are no Al-Qaeda or Taliban militants
sheltering in their areas, even though the Afghan provinces
of Nangarhar and Kunar on the other side of the border
remain extremely unstable.
Just a year ago there was no real border between the two
countries here, but now around 200 people a day are formally
vetted as they pass through.
‘There is no infiltration and no sanctuary for terrorists,’
said Iqbal, adding that he hoped Mohmand could become
a model for the whole tribal zone.
