In Tribal Pakistan, a Tide of Militancy

Many government critics here accuse the intelligence services of fomenting religious extremism in the tribal areas as a means of keeping Afghanistan unstable and vulnerable to Pakistani control. Senior Afghan officials, including President Hamid Karzai, have also made such claims, which Pakistani officials deny.

"In my view, stability for Afghanistan is the best thing for Pakistan," said Hamid Khan, the army corps commander. "All the turmoil there affects us; we get the refugees, the criminals, the drugs, the weapons. The miscreants have much safer sanctuaries on that side than on ours. If we want strategic depth, better we should have good relations than instability."

The Pakistani army has suffered numerous casualties since it entered the tribal areas two years ago under pressure from Washington to crack down on Islamic radicals. There have been repeated bloody clashes with tribal militiamen and, more recently, a spate of roadside bombings and one suicide bombing that targeted an army convoy. Visitors to the conflict zone describe soldiers as being largely confined to their outposts.

Until recently, most religious violence was limited to North and South Waziristan, the poorest and most isolated of the tribal areas, where Islamic fervor has always been strong. Although a recent truce has calmed South Waziristan, the fundamentalist fervor now seems to be erupting in other parts of the region.

In Swat, a peaceful agricultural valley, Islamic preachers persuaded people to hand over their television sets in May and burned stacks of them in public. In the Khyber Agency, a prosperous commercial area that straddles a major highway into Afghanistan, armed followers of an Islamic preacher burst into shops and lodging houses in early June, demanding at gunpoint that people pledge to follow Islamic law. In the ensuing clashes with another religious militia, several dozen people were killed.

"There are elements that have decided to create Taliban enclaves and to 'Waziristanize' the other tribal agencies," said Afrasiab Khattak, a human rights activist and official of the secular Awami National Party. "The government says it is taking action, but it is not. The source of the problem is here, not in Afghanistan. If such a bloody drama can happen in Khyber, it can happen anywhere."

Even in Peshawar, a huge city with a landscaped military district and a modern university, support for the revived Taliban movement is evident among students and worshipers at numerous mosques. Secular politicians say the militant fervor is being encouraged by the Islamic political parties that dominate the provincial government.

On a recent Friday, men emerging from prayer services said they were upset about army attacks on civilians in tribal areas and worried that U.S. forces in Afghanistan would enter Pakistan as well. One man, an English teacher, said the U.S. forces were "savages and barbarians" while the Taliban were "religious scholars and sincere people."

Another man with a black turban and bushy beard proudly identified himself as a former Taliban member who had fought in the capture of Kabul in 1996. Today, he said, the same conditions of lawlessness and immorality have returned on both sides of the border, demanding new action.

"Under the Taliban there was peace, there was order, there was justice. Now our people are facing cruelty, injustice and crime. It has all come back, and it cannot be allowed to continue," said Wahidullah, 32, who runs a religious academy for boys. "If I didn't have other responsibilities now, I would love to join the fight again."