Pakistan heartland of the Taliban

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FRANCIS ELLIOTT From: The Times

AFGHANISTAN appears through the clouds, a black serration of the western horizon. From a valley in between, the crump of artillery is answered by a machine gun. The US calls Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas, the "epicentre of global terrorism". Sararogha is near the middle of the epicentre. "This is the hub," says Brigadier Hayat Hassan, commander of Pakistan's forces in South Waziristan, standing at a hilltop base. Its name, Lajpal, is spelt out in spent cartridges. He is surrounded by sight guides pointing to some of the most infamous names in Pakistan. One way is Mingora, the town in which the schoolgirl blogger Malala Yousufzai was shot. The other is Miran Shah, the administrative centre of North Waziristan. The Pakistani Taliban are estimated to have 30,000 fighters. Foreign Islamists, Punjabi militants, the remnants of al-Qa'ida and the Haqqani network and leaders of the Afghan Taliban all find shelter in its hundreds of valleys.South Waziristan was supposedly cleared of insurgents in a military operation in October 2009. But with pressure again growing on Pakistan to push north, it is obvious that militants still have free run of much of the territory. Chains of hilltop bases, some so remote they are supplied by donkey, secure the main settlements and roads. But only 15 per cent of the 300,000 people displaced by the operation have been allowed to return. With 15,000 troops in more than 6000sq km, a senior officer admits that "vast areas" are still not policed. In the Janata valley, once used for training by the Pakistani Taliban, only one of 14 villages has been resettled. US drones can be heard over the valley's upper reaches, say officers. "There are gaps through which these people can move," Brigadier Hassan says. "We can't occupy every summit." Asked when Lajpal was last attacked, he pauses, smiles and says: "Yesterday." The assault was ineffective - a couple of mortar rounds that "landed well shy". But it underlined that this is, at best, a work in progress. The danger is such that visits by Western journalists are extremely rare, but The Times was given permission to travel by a military keen to emphasise its achievements so far - and the scale of the challenge remaining. Even seen from above, Waziristan's topography is bewildering: fertile alluvial plains, immense pillared cliffs, shallow, broad gorges snaking between barren ridges of ochre or cement-grey. The helicopter from Peshawar affords a drone's-eye view of Kotkai, the village that was home to Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, before landing nearby in Chaghmalai. The settlement is one of a number of "model villages" that the Pakistani military has refurbished in a classic counter-insurgency operation. The village has been given its own cadet college, a new girls' high school, a market and poultry and cattle farms. Up the newly built road, a technical training college provides skills for returning Mehsuds - the local tribe - to give them an alternative to becoming insurgent foot soldiers. Sitting in a fort built by the British in 1933, a group of youths (and some who look a lot older) stitch footballs. The military is discounting hives and bees to start a Waziristan honey industry. There are plans to graft Italian strains on to the local olive trees. Signs of change exist: asked what he thought of the shooting of Malala, an 11-year-old schoolboy says: "She was brave. She should not have been hurt for wanting an education." His teacher confirms a change of attitude among a people imbued with tradition: "People want their daughters educated now." The local women have dispensed with their burkas when they fetch water. But it is slow going. A classroom of computers, provided by the military, has not been used. "We have no one to teach them how to use them," the principal said. The chairs in the room are still wrapped in plastic. The boys' school has only three teachers for 600 pupils, but it is faring better than the girls' school, which has yet to recruit even half the female staff it needs to open. Eight in 10 applicants for the cadet college were turned away, a rejection level that will not help a literacy rate below 5 per cent. Only when villages have basic amenities such as electricity does the army allow residents back. Most of those displaced, waiting in towns such as Tank, know their mud-built houses are crumbling into dust or are being used by the Taliban. Privately, military officers complain they are restricted by a lack of funds and political will. The desire not to be seen as an army of occupation is clear at Lajpal. On the roof of the base two giant speakers point down to the badlands. "They are for psychological warfare," said Captain Imran Khan. "We use them for the call to prayer so that they should know that what they have been told about the army not being Muslims is false." Then, pointing barely a mile to the rear, he says: "Until three months ago we were there." Many believe that the front line must move faster than that if Pakistan is serious about defeating its insurgency.