PAKISTAN: Tribals warn Pakistan government not to carry out operations in their region.

Record ID: 858772

  • Title: PAKISTAN: Tribals warn Pakistan government not to carry out operations in their region.
  • Date: 23rd April 2006
  • Summary: CLOSE OF MEN LISTENING
  • Embargoed: 8th May 2006 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Pakistan
  • City:
  • Country: Pakistan
  • Topics: Domestic Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVAE311JVTC5BZGBHL61TU9CAFYS
  • Aspect Ratio:
  • Story Text: An Arab militant killed by Pakistani security forces in the tribal areas near the Afghan border was an al Qaeda "bag man", a senior official said on Friday (April 21).
    Militant Abu Marwan Hadid al-Suri,38, shot dead in the Bajaur tribal region on Thursday (April 20), was believed to have distributed funds to families left behind in Pakistan and Afghanistan by Iraq al Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and others, the security official in North West Frontier Province told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
    The security official said they found a notebook on al-Suri that contained a ledger listing al Qaeda members and their family members who were to receive funds. Zarqawi was on the list. He was also an explosives expert and wanted by the United States.
    The offensive has angered the fierce tribesmen of the lawless region.
    "We will not accept any more attacks. If there is a criminal in our region, we will catch him ourselves," Malik Qadir Khan, a tribal elder told a jirga (tribal gathering) of Bajaur agency.
    "I will put a rope around his neck," he said, to a round of applause from the tribesmen.
    Al-Suri was killed in a shoot-out in Bajaur's main town of Khar when he opened fire on troops who had stopped the minibus he was travelling in. He killed one of the soldiers.
    The militant's killing came a week after the security forces killed an Egyptian al Qaeda member wanted for involvement in the 1998 bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.
    Akhunzada Chattan, another elder, said security forces had laid siege to the Agency but warned the government it could not move an inch in the rugged region if it did not have the support of the locals.
    " You (Pakistan government) will neither allow us to run the region, nor can you run it yourself. Tribal tradition is that any criminal on the road is to be caught by you; anyone who crosses the road (and enters the tribal region) has to be caught by the tribals. But what is our status if you are sending your forces into our territory?" he asked.
    "And if the man escapes you hold us accountable for it. This is a strange type of justice!" he added.
    Many in the crowd rose up shouting that immediate action needed to be taken to warn the government of the consequences of any further operations in the region.
    "The tribal elders should go and tell the authorities that there will be no more "jirgas" (tribal councils)," said Khan Bahadur, an elder.
    "Tell us once and for all where the terrorists are so that we can catch them for you. But if you continue to send forces and troops after them, killing people left and right, then you will be responsible for the consequences. We will not be held accountable," he added.
    The official said al-Suri, which means Syrian, was involved in al Qaeda operations in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad and moved to Bajaur in 2005 to organise attacks in the Afghan province of Kunar. END
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