Terminales telefónicos

The Karlanri tribes primarily inhabit FATA, a territory known as Yaghistan⁶² until the early twentieth century. Each tribe is significantly smaller than the much larger Yusufzai, but in aggregate the Karlanri number 6 million,⁶³ comparable with the Ghilzai. The major Karlanri tribes include the Wazir, Mehsud, Afridi, Utmanzai, Orakzai, Mohmand and Khattak, of which the Waziri, Mehsud and Afridi have a particularly salient strategic and political role in the Afghan borderland

The population of North Waziristan numbers just under 400,000 with the vast majority belonging to the Waziri tribe who occupy fortified homesteads in the hilliest areas of the south

60 Field work among the Yusufzai of Hazara division in September-December 1999 revealed that the Swat Valley and Mansehra has experienced an infusion of foreign currency since the late 1980‟s resulting in the construction of concrete houses, the wide availability of electrical appliances, and the sending of children away from village madrassas to provincial schools.

61 Field work among the Yusufzai of Hazara Division in September-December 2000 revealed an incident in upper Pakhli where a clan issued a call to arms in response to a dispute over the holding of congregational Friday prayers at a newly built mosque. A violent clash was avoided through the arbitration of a jirga. The frequency of such incidents in northern KP is far less than the near-monthly feuds between the Mehsud and Wazir in South Waziristan.

62 Sana Haroon (2007: 30-1) describes Yaghistan as both a „land of dissidence‟ and of the „free‟.

63 The 1998 census of Pakistan placed the population of FATA at 3.17 million, almost all of whom were Karlanri. In addition, much of the population of Peshawar, Kohat, Bannu, Tank and D.I. Khan is of Karlanri origin.

of the agency.⁶⁴ A sizeable minority of the population belong to the Dawr tribe, who are farmers and have cultivated the valleys of Waziristan to raise crops and livestock.⁶⁵ Although considered among the most austere of Pashtuns by other tribes, the Waziri have historically been given to enjoying pastimes considered un-Islamic by other tribes, such dancing and singing at their Hujras, a place usually the scene of clan negotiations, jirgas, and melmastiya.

The Waziri are the dominant tribe in North Waziristan, and are present across the Durand Line in Khost, Paktia and Paktika. Prominent sub-tribes are the Ahmedzai and Utmanzai. Major clans of the former include the Hussein Khel and Kalo Khel, while the latter includes the Ibrahim Khel, Wali Khel and Mumit Khel. North Waziristan has maintained an open border, and links contiguously with the Khost province of Afghanistan.⁶⁶ The cave complex at Tora Bora, scene of a major battle between US-led forces and al-Qaeda fighters in December 2001, rises from the hills of North Waziristan. There is wide speculation that following the battle, high value targets sought by the US-led coalition escaped from Tora Bora into North Waziristan.⁶⁷ Following the battle, the Pakistani military sought to move into North Waziristan with a large contingent of regular infantry forces. A series of fierce fire exchanges between the Waziri and the Pakistan military has forced the Pakistani military to concede that a military engagement at best will remain inconclusive, creating the environment for a political engagement with the Waziris.⁶⁸

The Mehsud are the dominant tribe in South Waziristan, although there are clans of Waziri and Urmar in the agency. The Mehsud consists of three major sub-tribes; Manzai, Bahlozai, and Shaman Khel, together forming ‘mizh threy Mehsud’ (we three Mehsud). They are the most notorious of all the Karlanri clans for their disposition towards fighting. Amongst them is an oral tradition relating to the repudiation of any foreign presence from Mehsud territories, no doubt galvanised by the successes gained at the expense of British expeditions in the early twentieth century as a cultural narrative. Caroe (1958: 397), in keeping with this cultural narrative, describes the Mehsud as having a deep-seated instinct which drives them at all cost

64 Hassan Abbas details Wazisirstan‟s tribal structure in „Profiles of Pakistan's Seven Tribal Agencies‟, Jamestown Terrorism Monitor http://jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=202 . Accessed 17^th May, 2007.

65 Ibid.

66 Hassan Abbas „Profiles of Pakistan's Seven Tribal Agencies‟, Jamestown Terrorism Monitor http://jamestown.org/news_details.php?news_id=202 . Accessed 18^th May, 2007.

67 Numerous analysts and governmental officials have alleged this, but there is no indisputable evidence confirming the presence of Bin Laden at Tora Bora, his withdrawal into North Waziristan, or his whereabouts currently.

68 The most significant engagement was at Kalushah in March 2004, where Pakistani forces suffered losses that led to a tactical retreat and a cease-fire.

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to resist subjection. Aside from the narrative, there are a number of factors that account for the Mehsud predisposition towards pursuing martial options. The Mehsud are not an historically pastoral tribe. Land in the Mehsud zai is arid, rocky and experiences climate extremes both in summer and winter. This has resulted in the Mehsud developing a tribal culture of raiding caravans and settled areas, then retreating into the rugged terrain of their zai. Further, the Mehsud rivalry with the Wazir is extreme. As explained by Dr. Azmat Hayat Khan;⁶⁹

The Mehsud and Wazir can each ally with a Hindu,⁷⁰ but can never ally with each other.

In September 2006, the Pakistani government announced that a deal had been reached with the TTP leadership in South Waziristan, representing the Taliban and allied supporters from the Mehsud and Waziri tribes. The deal included provisions for the withdrawal of Pakistani forces from Waziristan, conditional upon the cessation of the TTP’s harbouring of foreign militants engaged in attacks against Pakistani forces. In keeping with the pashtunwali norm of nanawatey, ardently adhered to by the Mehsud and Wazir, tribal representatives were not asked to surrender their foreign melma, rather to keep an account of who they were, and to persuade them not to engage in attacks against the Pakistani forces while under the protection of the Mehsud and Waziri (T. Khan 2007: 64-5). A notable feature of the deal was the subsequent revelation that it was concluded between representatives of Pakistan and the Islamic Imara of Waziristan. The term reflects the autonomy that the Mehsud and Waziri seek in their relations with Pakistan.

The Afridi are perhaps the oldest of the Pashtun tribes, of whom records date back to Herodotus. The Afridi are divided into eight clans; Adam Khel, Aka Khel, Kamar Khel, Kuki Khel, Malikdin Khel, Qambar Khel, Sepah, and Zakka Khel. The Afridi, or Apridi as they describe themselves, inhabit the southern part of the Safed Koh Range, the Khyber Pass, and the Maidan of Tirah. They are considered the most pragmatic and perhaps unpredictable of the Karlanri tribes, with a proven martial prowess against Mughal, British and Russian campaigns.

The Afridi participate in local jirgaey, as is the convention, but are also invited to jirgaey in

69 Interview with Dr. Azmat Hayat Khan, 5^th August 2008, Peshawar University, Peshawar.

70 Prior to partition, Tank and DI Khan - districts contiguous with South Waziristan - had a significant Hindu population. Hindu merchants were often bankers, and reviled particularly among Mehsud and Waziri tribesmen for the practice of lending money to make a profit; a practice alien to both the Mehsud and Waziri. As a result, both tribes developed an enmity for Hindu bankers , surpassed in intensity only by the enmity for each other.

Afghanistan among the Shinwari, and Jirgaey in Mardan in KP. This is on account of the central role of the tribe in trans-Khyber trade.

The Afridi are an enterprising tribe, producing a number of very successful businessmen who have profited immensely from the ‘grey’ trade across the Durand Line. The Afridi are the main source of disruption to NATO convoys through the Khyber Pass, with interdicted items traded at the Bara market on the edge of Afridi territory outside Peshawar. The market is a major centre for weapons and narcotics, despite efforts by the Pakistani government to curtail the trade, which continues to be plied by the Afridi.

2.6 Conclusion

Segmentary structures organised around patrilineal descent constitute enduring, indigenous roots of identity and polity amongst the Kurds, the Bedouin and the Pashtuns. Historically, these roots have variously been the foundation of, accommodated by, and then countered by the state. The nature and arrangement of successive states claiming authority over these tribal territories have varied over the centuries, but in the case of all three societies the tribes and their cultures have endured these states and currently continue to endure the postcolonial state. The challenge presented to these tribal societies in the form of the modern postcolonial state is unprecedented in terms of technology, military capability, and economy. Yet in these challenges lie opportunities that tribesmen are both creating and exploiting, most observable in borderlands, in pursuit of the preservation of identities, cultures and polities that are evidently far more enduring than the transitory states that are still struggling for legitimacy, identity and control more than half a century after their founding.

These dynamics are most evident in the Afghan borderland which hosts the largest tribal society in the world in the Pashtun, divided between the states of Pakistan and Afghanistan but under the effective authority of neither. Present in the narrative of the crowded historiography of Asia for millennia, the Pashtun are unique amongst tribal societies in the degree to which they are structurally and spacially differentiated, with each of the Ghilzai, Durrani, Yusufzai and Karlanri tribal branches drawing their origin from the Pashtun patrilineal shajara. The result is an aggregate of autonomous zai, interaction between which is directed by the all-encompassing framework of pashtunwali.

Elements of pashtunwali have a major political and strategic impact in the borderland and the wider region. This chapter addresses nanawatey, badal and melmastiya as salient elements of

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pashtunwali that have seen, for example, transnational militants seek refuge under the pretext of nanawatey, or exploit hospitality under the edict of melmastiya amongst the tribes of FATA.

Territoriality manifests through pashtunwali in the territorial concept of zai as it pertains to Pakhtunkhwa. The emergence of Pakhtunkhwa as a primary structure of identity and organisation in the first millennium was in itself a counter-current to the preponderant trend of southward tribal migrations from trans-oxiana and eastward thrusts from the Iranian Plateau. The Pashtun tribes achieved the territorialisation of Pakhtunkhwa in a widely contested space through martial experience, which in turn preserved the primacy of the clan and tribe as a structure of security and influence. This feature, the protection of tribal space by a patrilineally-derived militia, endures in the perceived independence of zai and the existence of the lashkar or arbakai. This forms a core element of Pashtun psycho-social awareness and identity that has become a point of physical and political competition between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the tribes of the borderland. Other aspects of Pashtun identity that exacerbate this competition are the world view of the tribal Pashtun embedded in pashtunwali that revolves around khpal, kor, khel, zai, Pakhtunkhwa and then aalam. This myopic conception of the centrality of the position of the Pashtun, both in the region and globally, is reinforced by international events which for a decade have often pivoted around the borderland, magnifying the impact of the actions of tribesmen to where inter-tribal dynamics have taken on global import. Thus, in the mind of the tribal Pashtun, the struggle for the primacy and autonomy of zai and atrap are played out on the widest stage of all, the aalam or world stage.

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3 The Strategic Significance of the Afghan Borderland from