Pakistan’s Mehsud tribe bear brunt of new push against Taleban's Hakimullah Mehsud
It is not a good time to be called Mehsud in northwestern Pakistan. Just ask Muhammad Shah Jahan Mehsud, 49, a manual labourer who fled his home in South Waziristan after the army attacked the Taleban stronghold on Saturday.
For five months his family endured air raids and artillery barrages as the military prepared for the attack on militants mostly from the Mehsud tribe — the region’s largest. Then on Sunday a shell landed in his family compound, killing his 14-year-old nephew.
Mr Mehsud and his six remaining relatives buried the teenager, packed some clothes and a few bags of flour, and fled on foot the next morning. After eight hours’ walking they reached Wana, the nearest town, where fellow tribesmen lent them money to pay for lifts to North West Frontier Province (NWFP). They are among an estimated 200,000 people — mostly Mehsuds — who have fled South Waziristan since the Government announced the army’s operation in June. They now face a struggle for survival in a region where the UN cannot operate for security reasons, and authorities have yet to provide refugee camps or food.
“There is no registration centre, no refugee camp, no rations and we don’t see any government official to help us,” Mr Mehsud told The Times. “I only want a tent and food — nothing more.”
When the army drove the Taleban out of the northwestern region of Swat in April it also launched a massive operation to feed and house two million displaced civilians. Pakistani officials have promised similar assistance for civilians fleeing South Waziristan, and the UN refugee agency says that it is distributing relief through local partners.
However, Mehsud politicians, elders and refugees said that they saw no evidence of assistance and accused authorities of punishing their tribe for the crimes of 10,000 militants. Some also warned that the Government’s indifference was pushing civilians into the arms of Hakimullah Mehsud, the Taleban leader. “The Government is dealing with the refugees like the Israelis’ attitude to the Palestinians,” said Saleh Shah, a senator from South Waziristan.
“I ask the Government to take steps on an emergency basis, otherwise your lukewarm attitude towards refugees will indirectly strengthen the hands of the militants.” He said that the Government was mistakenly relying on all the displaced finding accommodation with relatives, friends or fellow tribesmen in the NWFP.
Noor Khan, a tribal leader, said: “There is a total mess. Better facilities will strengthen refugees’ confidence in the Government and will discourage militancy.” The Government and army deny discriminating against the Mehsuds and say they do not want to set up refugee camps because they might become targets for militants.
FRONTIER FEROCITY
The Mehsud tribe inhabit about two thirds of South Waziristan’s 2,700 sq-mile area in the loosely governed tribal belt. They live in large fortified compounds and have a fierce culture of revenge
Surrounded on three sides by the Wazir tribe and in the east by the Bhittani, they have no direct access to Afghanistan or the rest of Pakistan
From the mid-19th century to 1947, occupying British forces failed to control them
An 1860 campaign in which British soldiers burnt houses and destroyed crops failed to secure a surrender; the locals were, and are, helped by South Waziristan’s treacherous landscape
Sir Olaf Caroe, former governor of the North West Frontier Province, who died in 1981, said: “The Mehsud are a people who can never think of submitting to a foreign power”
Many Mehsuds now live away from South Waziristan and some have reached high positions in the Pakistani Civil Service and Army. But the rebel core remains. In 2007, Baitullah Mehsud founded the Tehrik-e-Taleban movement, which has about 10,000 to 12,000 fighters in South Waziristan alone
Tehrik-e-Taleban is blamed for the December 2007 assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the September 2008 Islamabad Marriott hotel bombing and the March bombing of Lahore police
Pakistan’s Mehsud tribe bear brunt of new push against Taleban's Hakimullah Mehsud - Times Online