Assessing the truth of the situation in South Waziristan is extremely difficult because of its remoteness and inaccessibility. The International Committee of the Red Cross and other humanitarian aid groups have been denied entry to the region, on the grounds that the army is engaged in a law enforcement operation and not armed conflict as defined by the Geneva Conventions, according to an official from an aid agency who spoke on condition of anonymity. Foreign journalists also have been barred from traveling independently to the tribal areas, although the army occasionally escorts them there on tours, as it did on Saturday.
Such visits are carefully controlled. After a briefing by Khattak at the army's heavily fortified compound in Wana, army officials accompanied the journalists on a short helicopter ride to the Shakkai valley, about 15 miles north of Wana, to inspect the ruins of a compound that was said to have been used by foreign militants before it was destroyed by a precision airstrike in June.
Pakistani soldiers congregated near a destroyed hideout of militants linked to al Qaeda during a military exercise in Wana on Saturday.
(Maqsood Mehdi -- Reuters)
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Local army commanders then introduced a handful of Pashtun residents of the valley, who confirmed that the compound had indeed been used by foreign militants under the protection of two local tribesmen. Once the army officials were out of earshot, however, one of the tribesmen, Noor Murad Aidi, expressed anger over the army's tactics in an interview with a Pakistani journalist from the private Geo television network.
"This is an oppressor army," Aidi complained, adding that the June attack had "killed innocent people."
Pakistani authorities have estimated that as many as 600 foreign militants are hiding in the border area, mostly in South Waziristan, although military officials said Saturday that the number could have been whittled down by as much as half. Most are said to have sought refuge in the area after the collapse of the ruling Taliban militia in Afghanistan in late 2001. Khattak said the militants range in age from 18 to 35 and described them as well-trained, well-educated and highly motivated. Many are equipped with sophisticated arms as well as binoculars, Thuraya satellite phones and hand-held satellite navigation devices, he said.
After Khattak's briefing, army officials displayed equipment and supplies -- including heavy-caliber ammunition, Arabic-language explosives manuals and desktop computers -- recovered from a basement discovered this month under one of the compounds destroyed in June in the Shakkai valley.
Pakistani officials said that they moved troops into South Waziristan earlier this year after the United States provided Musharraf with irrefutable evidence that the region was serving as a base for launching terrorist operations in Afghanistan and the major cities of Pakistan. "There was no way we could have disputed the intelligence provided by the U.S. in form of satellite imagery and other material," said an intelligence official in Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, which includes South Waziristan. "In every case, we made our own independent confirmation, and each time, the precision of the American information shocked us."
Khan reported from Karachi.
