Frontline Pakistan : The Struggle With Militant Islam - Arz-e-Pak

1 Frontline Pakistan
and the Waziris had historically resisted British authority. When the
Durand Line was established as the border between Afghanistan and
British India in 1893, Waziristan became an independent territory,
outside the bounds of effective British rule. 12 Since it became part of
Pakistan in 1947, the government had continued the British practice of
pacification through payment of subsidies to tribal chieftains. Normal
Pakistani laws did not apply. Waziristan was administered exactly as
it had been under the British colonists. All powers had rested with
a centrally appointed political agent who exercised absolute judicial
authority in the area. He could jail any tribesman without trial and could
impose collective punishments on entire villages. The ungovernable
borderland separated Pakistan and Afghanistan and people on both
sides were ethnic Pashtuns who had long despised and ignored the
dividing Durand Line. The frontier had further blurred during the
Taliban rule in Afghanistan, with thousands of Pakistani tribesmen
joining conservative Islamic forces with the active encouragement of
the military and the ISI.
Its mountainous terrain had made Waziristan an ideal place for
guerrilla warfare. The landscape was dotted by forts built by the
British in the early part of the last century, in their largely unsuccessful
colonial bid to control the region and crush the resistance of the native
tribes. In 1937, the tribesmen rose in rebellion against the British forces
in response to a call for jihad by the Faqir of Ipi, a tribal leader who
exercised both religious and temporal powers. The tribal insurrection
started after the British forces engineered the escape of a Hindu girl
kidnapped by a young Pashtun and taken to Waziristan. The girl had
reportedly converted to Islam and taken the name of Islam Bibi before
marrying the boy. The event was celebrated according to the tribal
rituals. The British authorities somehow managed to whisk away the
girl and the incident was taken as an unforgivable insult to the tribal
elders. Fiercely hostile towards British rule, the Faqir of Ipi whose real
name was Mirza Ali Khan, made an impassioned call for holy war. 13
Thousands of armed tribesmen battled the British army with heavy
casualties on both sides. The hit and run tactics by the rebels proved very
successful. Even air strikes failed to break the resistance. The guerrilla
warfare stretched to over two decades. After independence in 1947,
the Faqir of Ipi continued his armed struggle against the new Pakistani
state, which he condemned as un-Islamic. He never surrendered, but
his support progressively petered out over the years. He died in 1960,
but his legend had survived. Many in Waziristan likened bin Laden to