* At the very least, the myth of the ‘ungovernable’ Tribal Areas
– so beloved of Raj-era tales – has been broken
KHAR: Journalist Myra MacDonald had not expected Pakistan’s tribal areas to be so neat and so prosperous. These were meant to be the badlands, mythologised as no-go areas by Kiplingesque images of xenophobic Pashtuns, jezail musket in hand, defying British troops from rugged clifftops.
They were the “ungovernable” lands where al Qaeda took sanctuary after the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Yet to fly by helicopter for the first time into Bajaur tribal agency was to challenge the more wildly imagined clichés about this little-visited region on the Pakistan-Afghan border. Here, in the northernmost part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), MacDonald realised this region was no longer as ferocious as feared and that while terrorists still called the shots in parts of FATA, Bajaur at least was somewhat pacified.
MacDonald’s helicopter landed in Khar, at a fort, which less than two years ago was under siege with rockets raining down every day. The soldiers, who fan out when she reached the abandoned stronghold at Damadola some 20 minutes drive away, where local terrorist leader Fakir Mohammad once held court, were watchful but not jumpy.
At the very least, the myth of the “ungovernable” tribal areas – so beloved of Raj-era tales – had been broken. The terrorists were so well entrenched at Damadola that only when the fighting intensified did they put up a sign asking the local people to stop bringing their disputes for a settlement. As the army pressed forward, some terrorists escaped, including the leaders, into Afghanistan, or back into the population. Some were captured while many were killed.
The last of them retreated into a warren of caves dug out of the hillside. MacDonald had to stoop low to get through the narrow tunnel at the entrance to the caves, fighting claustrophobia before she could stand up straight again in a dark cavern.
The army says it cleared these caves one by one, throwing in smoke grenades and then opening fire. For some of the local boys, given up by their families to join the terrorists, this would be the last they saw of their neat and prosperous land.
Source: Daily Times
Date:4/21/2010
