In the Pakistani mountains of Waziristan, young jihadis wait for martyrdom - Telegraph
In the Pakistani mountains of Waziristan, young jihadis wait for martyrdom
In the mountains along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, a massive battle looms.
By Arif Janjua in South Waziristan and Nick Meo
Published: 8:36AM BST 11 Oct 2009
Thousands of Pakistani soldiers are waiting for orders to launch an offensive that could change the course of their country's bloody struggle against the Taliban.
The operation is an attempt to end Pakistan's escalating terrorist violence, which last week alone saw 50 people killed in a carbomb that ripped through a marketplace. A brazen attack yesterday on the army's headquarters also left six soldiers dead.
The army's target is South Waziristan, a lawless tribal region. It is the headquarters of the jihad against Islamabad's rulers and a key training ground for fighters in the war against British and American troops across the frontier.
Waiting to do battle with government soldiers is an army of 10,000 local fighters, along with thousands of foreign jihadists allied to al-Qaeda, for which the area has long been a refuge - possibly even for Osama bin Laden himself.
All summer American officials have urged the Pakistan to launch a knockout blow. US officials believe the Taliban has been on the ropes since they were driven out of the valley of Swat, further north, last May, and now is the time to strike.
The government offensive is not guaranteed success, however. Last week reporter Arif Janjua travelled into the heart of the Taliban stronghold to meet the jihadists who are keenly waiting to embrace martyrdom.
With his AK-47 and confident stare, Yousaf looked like just another of the tribal fighters in the abandoned villages of South Waziristan who are steeling themselves for battle.
He was one of a group of dozens of young men - many of them teenagers - that were lounging around after prayers, joking and relaxed. They looked more as if they were on a picnic than preparing for what may be the climatic battle in their war against Pakistan's rulers, yet their resolve did not seem in doubt.
"There are thousands more like me who have come here to join our Muslim brothers," he said. "We are ready to fight these Pakistani soldiers who are doing the work of the American unbelievers."
Yousaf is a foreign jihadi from China, one of a small army who have flocked from across the Islamic world to the Taliban stronghold. They are here in search of martyrdom, and in the next few days they may achieve their dream; a few miles away, a massive force is assembled.
The Pakistani troops - many of them teenage boys recruited from the villages like the Taliban fighters - have high morale after a series of successes against the Taliban elsewhere in Pakistan this summer. But they know they have been given the toughest job possible; crush the Taliban in their most impregnable stronghold.
They were making preparations out of sight behind a range of low hills. Infantrymen were greasing their rifles in positions protected by sandbags, alongside artillery guns and tanks ready to pound the enemy - and any villagers unwise enough to have stayed in their homes.
The Taliban fiefdom of Waziristan has become a state within a state. It is where suicide bombers are prepared. Its young men volunteer in droves to fight the Americans and British across the border, or for suicide missions. Al-Qaeda uses the region to train fighters.
Foreign fighters allied to al-Qaeda - the men who Pakistani soldiers fear most, and sworn enemies of the West - have deep roots in Waziristan, marrying local women and training tribesmen in bomb-making skills.
The army has previously launched three bloody and chaotic invasions of the tribal areas - each time pulling out after encountering fierce resistance.
For centuries the tribal areas have been beyond the reach and administration of central government - whether under British colonial or independent Pakistani rule.
With no government control, the region has become Pakistan's jihad headquarters, awash with foreigners.
About 1,000 Islamist fighters from nearby Uzbekistan are thought to be based there, together with hundreds more Arabs and Chechens.
Yousaf, who is a member of the Uighur Muslim minority in China, had travelled hundreds of miles from the Chinese city of Kashgar to learn how to fight jihad.
He talked in a quiet, confident voice, describing his joy at the prospect of fighting the enemies of Islam. Jets circled high overhead. Muffled, distant explosions echoed around the mountains.
He was one of the bodyguards of Khan Bahadur, a Pakistani Taliban commander who was busily preparing his men for a bloody fight.
Commander Bahadur, a squat man in his late forties with a fierce stare, was preparing his scruffy teenage fighters with a rousing speech in a village square to face the Pakistani troops.
"In a few days time Pakistan will see what you are made of," he growled. His young fighters gripped the stocks of their AK-47s tightly and grinned back, happy at the prospect of battle.
They were armed with machine-guns, rocket-launchers, and landmines and bombs, simple weapons which can wreak havoc on an invading army if deployed by skilful guerrillas who know their business.
Watching nearby was another middle-ranking Taliban commander, Sher Alam. He claimed he had been declared dead after a drone strike in August. But, as with so many reported deaths of commanders in drone strikes, here he was - living proof of the limitations of fighting terrorists remotely from the air.
Mr Alam refused to give an interview because he did not have permission from his superiors - less a sign of camera shyness, more an indicator of the military-style discipline the Pakistan Taliban now enforces.
For the last week he has once again been trying to dodge the helicopter strikes, artillery barrages, and drone attacks which have pounded Waziristan, aimed at killing leaders.
The foreign fighters who protect Mr Bahadur - including Yousaf - have sworn to fight to the death if he is attacked by troops. They are a status symbol in the tribal region - a sign to his followers that a leader has access to money, weapons and training from al-Qaeda sympathisers overseas.
Yousaf, who would only give his first name, left his homeland because he believes the Chinese are occupiers. Earlier this year Muslim Uighurs fought Chinese police in the streets of Urumqi, a big city in the vast province of Xinjiang in the west of China. As in Tibet, Chinese settlers have flooded in and much of its traditional culture has been destroyed. He left years ago, his anger driving him all the way to Waziristan for military training, and now an imminent battle with Pakistani soldiers.
The villages, hamlets and bare, scrubby fields around him were eerily quiet. Civilians have joined the Taliban, or moved out days ago to safer places.
Some homes show signs of bomb damage from aerial attack.
The Sunday Telegraph's journey to the fighters' territory required careful planning. First, trusted intermediaries had to be contacted and the commander's personal guarantee of safety had to be obtained. Then a journey was made from army lines across a no man's land - civilians are permitted to travel between the Taliban and government-controlled zones. Once in Waziristan, the road was controlled by Taliban fighters manning checkpoints, young men with beards and long flowing hair. They roughly frisk travellers and threaten to shoot anyone they suspect may be a spy. They rummage through possessions in the belief that the CIA gives satellite phones to its agents to call in airstrikes.
"If the soldiers come to our land I am ready to fight them," said one of them, a teenager called Ijazullah, who only had one name. "I am ready to die. I am even ready for a suicide mission if that is required."
Old men, veterans of dozens of battles, were ready to join the teenagers.
"I remember when the British rulers attacked Waziristan," said Hazrat Hussein, a farmer aged 70 who has shouldered a rusty Kalashnikov to join the fight. "The British could not control these tribes," he added with pride.
The current cycle of fighting in the region began with the killing of Taliban supremo Baitullah Mehsud, hit by a missile fired from a US drone early in August. After a short chaotic period of factional fighting and jostling for position, a new leader emerged, Hakimullah Mehsud.
He too was hastily declared dead by Pakistani officials, who said he had been assassinated in a factional struggle. But last week, to their embarrassment, he emerged to give an interview to local journalists.
Mr Hussein insisted that under Mr Mehsud's leadership, the tribes were united, and would again defeat the Pakistan army.
"This will not be like Swat," Mr Hussein added, referring to the Pakistan army's successful operation further north last May which drove the Taliban back. "The people here support the Taliban strongly. They feed them and help them."
Far beyond Waziristan, the Taliban have launched bloody attacks this week - a common tactic to try to terrorise the population into urging the army to call off their offensives.
A suicide bombing in a bazaar in Peshawar on Friday killed 41 people and injured more than 100, including many children. On Tuesday an attack on a United Nations base in the capital Islamabad killed five. Yesterday six fighters were also killed during an audacious assault on the Pakistani army's main headquarters in Rawalpindi, near the capital, Islamabad.
"We have no option but to carry out an operation in South Waziristan," the interior minister, Rehman Malik, said on Friday.
"All roads are leading to South Waziristan. We will have to proceed."
It is not a view all agree with.
"If the government wanted to get rid of all the Taliban from Waziristan it would be easy," said Dilnawaz Khan, a soldier who served in the Frontier Corps for 18 years before retiring to run a tea stall in the city of Bannu.
"The officials have double standards. They don't really want to crush these Taliban or so-called terrorists because they want to blackmail the Americans to get sympathy and money."
A few miles away from his Taliban counterparts, Brigadier Javid Malik, the second in command of the Pakistan army operation, begged to differ.
"Now is the time to crush the Taliban," he said over a cup of milky tea in his office in an army barracks in Bannu.
"With them everything revolves around leadership, and since Baitullah Mehsud's death they have been in disarray. We are not going to give them more time to rebuild their power."
Then an orderly came into the room to tell him about the suicide bomb in Peshawar. The interview was over.
Brigadier Malik rushed out, his cup of tea still unfinished on the table
