ROBERT SIEGEL, host:
It's been more than a month since the Pakistani government struck a peace deal with the tribesmen of North Waziristan. North Waziristan is part of the autonomous tribal belt along Pakistan's mountainous border with Afghanistan. Al-Qaida and the Taliban took refuge in those areas after 9/11 and so, some believed, did Osama bin Laden.
Only now is it becoming clear why the new deal was struck, and as NPR's Philip Reeves reports, there may be another in the pipeline.
PHILIP REEVES: Zahur Ul-Haq has been practicing law since the Cuba missile crisis. A small, wizened man, he sits in a dimly lit room for senior high court lawyers, surrounded by admiring colleagues.
Today his conversation concerns today's global crisis, the so-called war on terror. This part of Northwest Pakistan is a staging post for nearby North Waziristan, where the government has made a controversial peace deal with the fiercely independent and deeply religious mountain tribesman. Zahur Ul-Haq's not sure the deal will last.
Mr. ZAHUR UL-HAQ (Attorney, Pakistan): These are not (unintelligible) solutions because once your mind is set, grounded in your faith, then you can't wipe it out by agreements and you can't wipe it out with bullets, either.
(Soundbite of crowds)
REEVES: This is Peshawar, Pakistan's clamorous frontier city, separated from Afghanistan by the Khyber Pass. Autonomous North Waziristan's a short journey away. Foreigners are barred from entering, but Peshawar journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai knows the border tribal belt well and is in daily contact with North Waziristan.
Mr. RAHIMULLAH YOUSAFZAI (Journalist, Peshawar): They were in trouble. They suffered almost 700 casualties.
REEVES: By they, he means the Pakistani Army. In 2003 under intense U.S. pressure, the army went into North Waziristan to flush out al-Qaida and the Taliban and stop them infiltrating Afghanistan. Yousafzai says it wasn't a success.
Mr. USBUSAI: No military convoy could move in North Waziristan without being ambushed or without being hit by a landmine explosion or without being attacked by missiles so they were facing problems.
REEVES: Shahzaman Kahn is a government spokesman for the tribal areas. He admits the army's tactics in North Waziristan were counterproductive.
Mr. SHAHZAMAN KAHN (Spokesman, Pakistani Tribal Areas): They created hatred against the army and with that, you see, the resistance also increased.
REEVES: But he also says the tribal people wanted peace too and the agreement came at their request.
The deal set nerves jangling abroad, especially in Afghanistan and the United States. Three weeks after the agreement was signed, American military intelligence was complaining of a threefold increase in Taliban attacks in Afghanistan's border provinces. Shahzaman Kahn says the U.S. and its allies were kept in the picture from the start.
Mr. KAHN: They were all on board before signing this agreement.
REEVES: And still are?
Mr. KAHN: And they still are.
REEVES: Pakistan is America's chief ally in the war on terror. Since 9/11 it's rounded up hundred of al-Qaida suspects, including some key figures. Yet Pakistan's often accused of an ambivalent attitude to the Taliban, who like the people of Pakistan's tribal belt are largely ethnic Pashtuns and who are fighting what they see as foreign occupation, a war confined to Afghanistan and its borderlands. There've even been allegations that Taliban headquarters are inside Pakistan.
Senator CHUCK HAGEL (Republican, Nebraska): Do you agree with the assessment of some that the Taliban headquarters is somewhere in the region of Quetta?
General JAMES JONES (U.S. Army): That's generally accepted. Yes, sir.
REEVES: That was Senator Chuck Hagel question General James Jones, Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in Europe at a recent Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing.
Pakistan's President Pervaiz Musharraf denies the Taliban is headquartered in Pakistan but he is seeking to persuade the U.S. and its allies that conciliation is a tactic worth trying instead of military force. Musharraf insists the North Waziristan deal is not making the Taliban stronger. He says the agreement is with tribal elders committed to curbing militancy.
But journalist Rahimullah Yousafzai says the deal was actually signed by militants, who got everything they wanted.
Mr. YOUSAFZAI: All their men have been released. All their weapons have been returned. All their vehicles captured by the army have been returned.
REEVES: As the U.S. and its allies watch and wait apprehensively, Pakistan's government's seeking to reassure them. Information Minister Tariq Azim Khan says the army can always go back on the offensive.
Mr. TARIQ AZIM KHAN (Information Minister, Pakistan): If this doesn't work, we will not hesitate from using the army again to ensure that there is not a whiff of terrorism (unintelligible) in that area.
REEVES: Debate over Pakistan's new strategy will soon flare up again. A senior Pakistani source told NPR work's now underway on another deal with the defiant tribes of the borderlands, this time with South Waziristan.
Philip Reeves, NPR News.
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