One of the women who recently completed a training programme for female counter-terrorism commandos in northern Pakistan accepts a certificate at her graduation ceremony. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jul 13 2015 (IPS)

For years, Robina Shah has dreamed of joining the police force.

Ever since her father, a police constable, was killed in a 2013 Taliban suicide attack in Peshawar, capital of Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, she has longed to carry on his legacy.

“We can operate all sorts of weapons and can battle militants anywhere the government chooses to deploy us. We are fearless.” -- 22-year-old Zainab Bibi, a recent graduate of an elite female military academy in northern Pakistan
Such a dream was not easily realised here in the heart of tribal Pakistan, where life for many residents has been suspended between militants and the military since 2001, when extremists fleeing the U.S. invasion of neighbouring Afghanistan began crossing the border and establishing a home base in this mountainous province.

Last year, however, Shah was offered the chance to make her wish a reality when the local government launched a five-month training programme for a small squad of women commandos.

The decision to draft women into KP’s beleaguered armed forces came on the heels of last December’s terrorist attack on the Army Public School in Peshawar that left 145 people dead, including 132 students between eight and 18 years of age.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed responsibility for the killing spree, claiming it as an act of retaliation for Operation Zarb-e-Azb, a military offensive launched against militants in North Waziristan in the summer of 2014.

For over a decade the armed forces have very nearly exhausted their options in their dogged attempts to ride the northern provinces of extremist groups. Everything from air raids to ground operations have been tried and failed, with heavy losses on both sides.

“In the last nine years alone,” KP Police Chief Nasir Khan Durrani told IPS, “we have lost over 5,000 policemen [in battles] with the outlawed TTP.”

Shaken by the school massacre last year, the province has stepped up its game against the militants. “We have raised the number of personnel from 70,000 to 90,000, and also become the first province in the country to have female commandos,” he added.

Bringing women into a profession dominated by men is a bold move, not least because militants in the area have made it very clear that a woman’s place is in the home.

But for the local force, it is the next logical step in the fight against extremism: it sends a clear message that women stand on equal footing with their male counterparts, and enables the police to navigate ‘delicate’ situations in counterterrorism field operations, such as inspecting women in potential terrorist compounds, or easily searching the homes of suspected terrorists where female relatives might balk at the arrival of male officers.

Following an intensive training session at an academy in KP’s remote Nowshera District that ended on Jun. 16, the 35 female commandos now stand ready to head out onto the frontlines.

Five grueling months of rising at five am and training until nearly midnight has turned this elite squad into a force to be reckoned with, experts say. Decked out in conservative dress, even in scorching weather, the women learned to handle anti-tank and anti-aircraft launchers.

But even more than their training, their grit springs from years of living under the shadow of militancy in a country that has witnessed some 50,000 terrorist-related deaths in the last decade alone.

Women have often borne the brunt of the conflict, including enduring the Taliban’s systematic attacks on girls’ education and a deadly campaign against women health workers. Furthermore, of the many thousands of people displaced by both government and militant campaigns, women refugees are among the worst impacted by a lack of food, health and sanitary facilities.

“It is a matter of pride to defend our people against aggression,” 22-year-old Zainab Bibi, a recent graduate of the academy, told IPS. “Our people need us to help them stay safe from violence.”

“We can operate all sorts of weapons and can battle militants anywhere the government chooses to deploy us,” she said in a determined voice. “We are fearless.”

Though small in scope, the pilot scheme has inspired officials both in and outside the province to expand its reach.

According to Peshawar-based political analyst Khadim Hussain, the government should consider preparing a “pool of women commandos for the whole country.”

“It’s high time the government gave women more facilities and introduced benefits to draw women to the police force,” he told IPS.

Indeed, education and employment opportunities for women in the province, home to 22 million people, are extremely limited. Women comprise just 40,000 out of 740,000 employees in the health sector, and female doctors number just 600, compared to 6,000 men.

Pakistan’s latest Economic Survey revealed that women are highly overrepresented in the informal sector, performing the bulk of the country’s unpaid domestic labour and engaging in a range of other menial low-paid jobs such as cooking and cleaning.

Meanwhile, their share of professional clerical and administrative posts stands at less than two percent. Experts say these dismal numbers are the combined result of social stigma, religious conservatism and strict familial obligations that keep women bound to their home and out of the job market.

Even those who actively seek work are often disappointed – between 2010 and 2011, for instance, an estimated 200,000 women in KP were unemployed despite expressing a wish to secure a job.

Against this backdrop, the entry of women into the upper echelons of the armed forces represents a monumental step forward for gender equality, and could even spill over into other spheres of life.

Noor Wazir, who ran the military training programme, told IPS that “graduates will be imparting their training to women in other districts and we hope to have hundreds of female commandos in a few years.”

He added that women would not only be stationed on military front-lines, but could easily be deployed at polling stations during elections, in hospitals for additional security or in market places that have long been targets of terrorist attacks, and where women are often loathe to go without a male escort.

Whichever direction the government chooses to take this successful programme, the women involved tell IPS it has been a life-changing experience.

Prior to their graduation in June they had heard whispered doubts as to their ability to complete the taxing course, or withstand the demands of a military lifestyle.

Now, even the skeptical fathers of these young women have come around to the idea that female commandos can handle the task every bit as well as their male counterparts.

Speaking to IPS in an exclusive phone interview, KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak said, “Hats off to the courageous KP policewomen. We salute and praise them. It is highly encouraging that women are ready to cope with the challenges posed by terrorism.”

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Fearing the presence of militants, personnel from law enforcement agencies keep a strict watch on camps set up by relief groups in the Bannu district of Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IP

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Aug 1 2014 (IPS)

Muhammad Tufail, a 22-year-old resident of Mardan, one of 26 districts that comprise Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, has recently become a volunteer aid worker.

Moved by the plight of nearly a million refugees fleeing a military offensive in the North Waziristan Agency of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which began on Jun. 15, Tufail now spends his days distributing food rations and medical supplies to beleaguered residents of huge camps for the displaced.

Tufail tells IPS that he and other volunteers see to the needs of some 10,000 families on a daily basis. “We cannot leave our people in distress,” the young man says with conviction.

“We have been keeping a strict eye on the relief camps organised by some jihadist outfits. We want to make sure they are not used for the recruitment of civilians for terrorist activities.” -- Akram Khan, a police inspector in Bannu
His passion is admirable, but the organisation he works for is dubious at best. Known simply as the Al-Rehmat Trust (ART), this charity group is widely considered a front for the outlawed Kashmir-based Jaish-e Mohammed (‘the army of Mohammed’ or JeM).

Banned in Pakistan since 2002, JeM is today a designated terrorist organisation, and stands accused of orchestrating the 2001 Indian Parliament attack.

Though the group itself has been lying low since 2003, its huge membership reveals itself during times of national crisis as efficient and well-endowed providers of relief.

“We were the first to start rescue efforts when a massive earthquake hit northern Pakistan in 2005,” Tufail tells IPS proudly. “Our volunteers rescued people from the debris and saved their lives.”

“I have devoted my own life to serve the people from this platform because ART serves people selflessly,” he says confidently.

It is this very gumption – expressed by scores of impressionable young people who serve these front groups – that have officials and law enforcement personnel extremely concerned about the influence of terrorist organisations during times of trouble.

“We have been keeping a strict eye on the relief camps organised by some jihadist outfits,” Akram Khan, a police inspector in Bannu, home to the majority of the IDPs, tells IPS. “We want to make sure they are not used for the recruitment of civilians for terrorist activities.”

Still, he is concerned that the sprawling camps, filled to beyond their capacity with desperate, vulnerable and traumatised civilians, provides a perfect recruiting ground for terrorists dressed as aid workers.

“The displaced are in need of monetary and social assistance”, which jihadist elements are more than willing to provide, he says.

“The nation is already experiencing hard times due to soaring terrorism – we can’t afford to allow militant groups to grow at the cost of displaced people,” he adds.

Yet this is exactly what appears to be happening, political analyst Dr. Khadim Hussain, chairman of the Baacha Khan Trust Education Foundation, tells IPS.

Besides JeM’s charity wing ART, the Jamat ud-Dawa (JuD), a missionary-style front group for the feared Lashkar-e-Taiba (‘army of the good’ or LeT) has also been active in relief efforts, rushing to the aid of those displaced by natural or man-made disasters, and winning the hearts of many who see the government’s emergency response as inadequate, he says.

The Falah-e-Insaniyat Foundation (FIF), also believed to be a front group for the LeT, has been providing medicines and foodstuffs to thousands of families who don’t know where their next meal will come from.

“We were the first to reach Bannu and start relief work because we couldn’t bear to see our Muslim bretherin in crisis,” Muhammad Shafiq, a volunteer with ART, tells IPS.

Shaukat Ali Mahsud, a displaced man with a family of seven to care for, says he is “thankful to both the organisations for their sincerity and devotion”.

“These people are helping us. They are not terrorists, they are just very good Muslims,” he tells IPS, adding that he personally knows dozens of families who have received life-saving support from volunteers with one of the many groups believed to be charity wings for terrorist outfits.

“We will never forget their help in these trying times,” he asserts.

Government turns a blind eye

Several major players in the world of geopolitics – including India, the United States and the United Kingdom – have designated groups like JeM and LeT as “deadly terrorist organisations” and accused them of waging proxy wars in Indian-occupied Kashmir.

Due to heavy international pressure, both groups have been keeping a relatively low profile, but the massive humanitarian crisis caused by the government’s efforts to wipe out the Taliban from their mountainous stronghold on the Afghan border has brought JeM and LeT back into the limelight, Muhammad Shoaib, an analyst at the University of Peshawar, tells IPS.

“These outfits, with the help of the state, have carefully maintained their welfare wings to prove that they are more than just militant formations,” he states.

The allegation that major terrorist groups enjoy government support is not new, and takes on added weight during times of national crisis.

For instance, numerous secular NGOs eager to commence relief operations among the displaced have been unable to secure the required ‘No Objection Certificate’ (NOC), a document issued by the government as proof that a particular programme or activity is authorised by the state.

Jawadullah Shah, who heads the Rural Health Foundation, hasn’t been able to secure an NOC despite submitting an application to the government on Jun. 18. He says the delay is preventing his organisation from carrying out aid work.

On the other hand, he tells IPS, ART has been actively working with the affected populations without any hindrance.

“The government, as well as army officers, are extremely cooperative; it has been smooth sailing,” according to ART volunteer Shafiq.

Meanwhile, the JuD, which stands accused of orchestrating the 2013 attack on the Indian consulate in Jalalabad, western Afghanistan, is also extremely active in the aftermath of disasters, despite being branded a terrorist operation by the United Nations Security Council in 2008.

The Pakistan government says there is no evidence linking the group with terrorist activity.

“We are running hospitals, schools and colleges for the poor people in Pakistan,” Hafiz Muhammad Saeed, founder of the JuD who has been accused by the Indian government of plotting the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, tells IPS.

“Helping displaced people is our foremost duty. We sent relief goods worth over five million dollars to flood-hit areas of Pakistan 2010 and we have so far sent supplies worth two million dollars to Bannu,” he adds.

The FIF, believed to be closely aligned with the LeT and the JuD, is also playing a major role.

“We have deployed 500 volunteers to Bannu. We dispatch 10 trucks with relief goods almost every day,” FIF’s chairman Hafiz Abdur Rauf tells IPS.

Though the displaced are grateful for the assistance, experts and officials are determined to stamp out what they see as militant groups infiltrating vulnerable populations and recruiting foot soldiers from their midst.

Hussain, of the Baacha Khan Trust Education Foundation, does not mince his words when describing the systematic recruitment operation: “As we have witnessed during disasters like the earthquake in 2005, the military operation in Swat in 2009 and the floods in 2010, these groups use charity work to win the hearts and minds of Pakistani people by creating ‘soft corners’ of moral and economic assistance.”

Instead of allowing the radicalisation of displaced people, the government should be de-radicalising the militants to achieve lasting peace, he tells IPS.

The very simple and effective strategy pursued by militant groups must not be allowed to continue unchecked, he adds.

“The war against militants currently being waged in the northern province will be meaningless if other militant entities are allowed to grow with impunity at the same time,” Hussain concludes.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

A policeman at a funeral for victims of a Taliban attack. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS.

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 4 2014 (IPS)

Whether to make war or peace with the Taliban has become a dilemma for the Pakistani government.

Preliminary talks were scheduled to begin Tuesday between a team nominated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif comprising officials and journalists, and a team supporting the Taliban, comprising mostly religious leaders. But not everyone believes these are the talks that were needed.

“There is no hope of peace because the committees formed by government and the Taliban have no power to negotiate sensitive matters,” says Muhammad Rasool Bangash, a history teacher at the Abdul Wali Khan University in Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in the north of Pakistan.“There is no hope of peace because the committees formed by government and the Taliban have no power to negotiate sensitive matters.”

“The committees should have been represented by government and the Taliban. Without bringing [the] Taliban and the government face-to-face it is difficult to have peace.”

The government has been giving mixed signals. On Jan. 23, at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Sharif, and attended by the top brass of the Pakistan army, it was decided that force would be used against the Taliban.

“We cannot surrender state authority to the Taliban. We will talk to those who want to surrender before talks,” Sharif said in a statement.

Voices calling for convincing dialogue are growing louder as international forces prepare to withdraw from neighbouring Afghanistan by the end of 2014 – a move that is widely expected to strengthen the militants. Meanwhile, the Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) continues to carry out ruthless attacks.

On Feb. 2, a bomb attack in a Peshawar cinema hall killed five persons. “Continuation of Taliban attacks means they aren’t serious in talks,” says Shahabuddin Khan, an elderly man who migrated to Peshawar from North Waziristan. Peshawar is the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

“The withdrawal of U.S. forces will give immense strength to the Taliban who can gain complete control of bordering areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan,” says Shahabuddin Khan.

“The Taliban will get stronger as U.S.-led forces withdraw from Afghanistan,” Z.A. Hilali, professor of international studies at the University of Peshawar, tells IPS. “Pakistan and Afghanistan’s border areas are infested with militants who can pose a serious threat to the governments in these countries.”

Cricketer-turned-politician Imran Khan, whose party Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI) is in power in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, is a staunch supporter of peace talks with the Taliban.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, located near the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan where the Taliban are very active, bears the brunt of Taliban attacks. The Taliban along with Al-Qaeda members took refuge in FATA when their government was toppled in Afghanistan in 2001. Many Taliban members from Afghanistan have merged with Taliban groups from Pakistan.

Imran Khan says military operations against the Taliban since 2004 have not brought any success and the Taliban have only become stronger.

“I have been listening to statements like ‘the back of the Taliban has been broken’, but the results are before the nation. Every day we see attacks in which innocent people are killed. The only way for durable peace is dialogue with militants,” Imran Khan tells IPS.

His party believes that making peace with the Taliban is essential for the progress of Pakistan.

“Without peace, we cannot make progress. There is no investment in the province, and as a result people will get poorer,” says Asad Umar, member of the National Assembly from the PTI.

“We have planned reforms to bring investment to the province. But for that we need to talk to the Taliban to pave the way for peace,” Umar tells IPS.

The Taliban too have been asking the government to begin “serious and meaningful” talks.

Political analyst Dr Abdul Jabbar says talks are important as the government will not be able to match the Taliban’s might after the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan.

“Only 8,000-12,000 soldiers, most of them American, will remain in Afghanistan to assist Afghan forces in their fight against the Taliban,” he says. “In that scenario it would be extremely difficult to battle the Taliban because even at the moment, when there are about 37,500 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, along with 19,000 forces from other countries in the NATO-led coalition, they are very strong.

“The Taliban are carrying out bomb and suicide attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan at will. And they can pose a serious challenge to both the militancy-prone countries after the international forces leave.”

Sharif has come under much criticism for delaying talks with the Taliban.

Political analysts say he is banking on his party’s good equations with militant groups based in the Punjab province, but that this will not help in the long run. Sharif’s younger brother Shahbaz Sharif has been chief minister of Punjab for the last six years.

“Lately, we have seen several attacks in Punjab. The Taliban have targeted police, army and public places in Punjab, and the situation could get worse,” Jabbar says.

The main opposition Pakistan People’s Party, whose leader Benazir Bhutto was killed in 2007, wants the government to take a clear stand on whether it wants to hold a dialogue or carry out operations against the TTP.

“The entire nation is united on fighting terrorism and the time has come to arrive at a final decision to wipe out the elements who take the lives of innocent people,” Khursheed Shah, PPP member and leader of the opposition in the National Assembly tells IPS.

Imran Khan says the government should take the nation into confidence if it opts for a military operation against the Taliban. Military operations so far have failed to defeat the Taliban, and have displaced about three million tribal people. Further action will only spell disaster, Imran Khan says.

“The only option we have is talks with militants,” Imran Khan tells IPS.

“If the U.S. can talk to the Afghan Taliban, then why can we not talk to the Pakistani Taliban? It is time we came out of the U.S.-led war because we have lost 50,000 people, including 5,000 soldiers and 100 billion dollars in the so-called war.”

The Agency Headquarters Hospital (AHH) in Bajaur Agency, shortly after a Taliban suicide bomb attack. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, May 1 2013 (IPS)

Akbar Shah was sitting with his sick wife in the gynaecology ward of the Agency Headquarters Hospital in Bajaur Agency, a division of northern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), when a bomb ripped through the facility, scattering patients, doctors and medical supplies.

“We immediately rushed my wife to Peshawar (capital of the neighbouring Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province) because the doctors, paramedics and nurses were panicked and unable to look after patients,” Shah told IPS.

Hours later, the Taliban claimed responsibility for the Apr. 20 suicide mission.

"The Taliban are just inviting the wrath of God Almighty by targeting healthcare facilities...The patients should be shown mercy."
Shah’s wife is now being treated in a hospital in Peshawar and though her condition is showing signs of improvement, Shah still curses the Taliban for its ruthless campaign against health facilities in the region.

The entire medical community, along with a large majority of the general public, has slammed this latest attack, which killed four people, as a plot to deprive FATA’s population of six million people of adequate healthcare.

According to Dr. Shaukat Ali at the FATA Health Directorate, the 200-bed Agency Headquarters Hospital (AHH) had provided treatment to over 100,000 patients annually, with the help of 120 doctors and 100 paramedics.

“It is the only specialised hospital in FATA,” he told IPS, but it is now devoid of both patients and doctors, who have fled to Peshawar.

With 26 hospitals, 10 rural health centres and 419 community health centres, FATA is well equipped to deal with all of its residents’ medical needs. But if the attacks do not stop immediately, Shaukat Ali warned, the entire health system here will be rendered ineffective.

Meanwhile, medical facilities in Peshawar are struggling to keep pace with the influx of patients from tribal areas on the Afghanistan border, who say they are “too afraid” to visit hospitals that might be targeted by militants.

Dr Ahmad Sher at the Khyber Teaching Hospital in Peshawar told IPS his facility received about 20,000 patients from FATA in 2012 alone.

“The Taliban are just inviting the wrath of God Almighty by targeting healthcare facilities where patients are treated for different ailments. The patients should be shown mercy,” he said.

So far the Taliban have destroyed about 400 health facilities in FATA and the Khyber Pakhtunkwa (KP) province.

“Since 2008, the Taliban militants have damaged 128 health facilities in FATA,” Secretary of the Provincial Doctors Association (PDA) Dr. Muhammad Irfan told IPS, while the adjacent KP lost 55 health facilities between 2007 and 2009, during the Taliban’s illegal rule over the Swat district.

Militants have been particularly unforgiving of those who defy the so-called “ban” on polio immunisation, which they have labeled “un-Islamic”. The group also claims the oral polio vaccine (OPV) was designed to render the recipients impotent and infertile in order to “curb” population growth of Muslims.

In the past three months the Taliban have claimed responsibility for the deaths of 17 policemen, female vaccinators and volunteers in polio-related violence.

Last year, out of a total of 58 cases of polio in the country, 27 were recorded in the KP and 20 in FATA, which experts believe is likely the result of the Taliban’s interference with immunisation drives.

Fathema Murtaza, Pakistan spokeswoman for Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) told IPS it is crucial that medical structures and patients be spared from violence.

“MSF…calls for respect for the safety and security of patients, health facilities, and medical staff,” the group said in a press release last week. “All actors in the area must ensure that medical activities can take place unhindered and not be targeted.”

Since March, MSF medical teams have been running mobile clinics in Bajaur, providing services in three Basic Healthcare Units (BHUs) where about 200 patients are treated every week, Murtaza said.

“The safety and security of healthcare is essential for MSF to continue to expand its medical intervention in Bajaur,” she added.

The PDA’s Dr. Muhammad Irfan condemned the Taliban and asked the government to tighten security on hospitals so patients can receive necessary treatment undisturbed.

“We will hire private security guards and will impart training to our watchmen and other staff on how to foil terror (plots),” FATA’s director of health, Dr. Fawad Khan, informed IPS.

In that same vein, the female staff of government-run hospitals will be trained on how to conduct body searches of female visitors and take appropriate measures if they encounter anything suspicious.

The health directorate has also sought the services of the KP police in the training of health personnel.

Like other experts and medical professionals here, Khan believes the targeting of health facilities is particularly egregious in a region that is already lagging behind global health indicators, particularly with regards to maternal mortality.

“About 365 women (per 100,000 live births) die every year in Pakistan’s four provinces, while in FATA the number is closer to 400 due to pregnancy-related complications,” he said.

Similarly, FATA only has a 40 percent immunisation rate, compared to a nationwide rate of 67 percent.

A majority of FATA’s 400 qualified doctors are too afraid to go to work because of the dangers that loom over them every day, he added.

(END)

On Apr. 16, 2013, a Taliban suicide bomber targeted a political rally organised by the Awami National Party (ANP). Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Apr 17 2013 (IPS)

Bacha Khan Markaz, a two-storey building in the northern Pakistani city of Peshawar, is abuzz with activity. Located deep in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province, whose northwestern tip borders Afghanistan, the building serves as the headquarters for the Awami National Party (ANP), which is gearing up for general elections on May 11.

But contesting major polls in a Taliban stronghold is no easy task. Tucked in between the flurry of press conferences and public meetings are warning letters, death threats and even assassinations.

"We do not fear the Taliban. We have been making sacrifices even before Pakistan itself came into being."
On Sunday, Apr. 14, ANP leader Mukarram Shah was killed in a bomb blast in the Swat valley, an administrative district of the KP. A prominent member of the Swat Peace Committee, Shah was alone in his car at the time of the explosion, which the outlawed Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP) quickly claimed responsibility for.

TTP does not trouble to hide its hatred of the ANP, which has ruled the KP since 2008. In 2009, a major ANP operation evicted the Taliban from the Swat valley.

Following the Apr. 14 assassination, militants reiterated their stern warning to “secular” parties that opposition to the Taliban will not be tolerated.

All civilians have been instructed to stay away from rallies and public meetings – but the threats have fallen on deaf ears as, time and again, election hopefuls from groups like the ANP, the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) come out into the streets, drawing crowds of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of supporters.

On Apr. 16, 2013, a Taliban suicide bomber targeted a political rally organised by the Awami National Party (ANP). Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

And as the popularity of secular parties grows, so too does the wrath of the militants. On Tuesday, Apr. 16, a suicide bombing at an ANP public meeting in Peshawar killed 10 people.

Though visibly shaken by these attacks, the ANP is showing no sign of slowing down its campaign drive in this last push before Election Day – rather, it seems to be ramping up efforts.

The party has a long and proud legacy of taking up the cudgels on behalf of their countrymen and women. ANP Vice President and former Federal Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour tells IPS his party “does not fear the Taliban, as we have been making sacrifices even before Pakistan itself came into being.

“Our leader Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (known as Bacha Khan, or “king of chiefs”) spent 33 years in jail for fighting British rule and then later, fighting the Pakistan government for the rights of Pashtuns”, the country’s second-largest ethnic group, in what was then called the North-West Frontier Province.

Through years of struggle, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan helped residents of the province win the right to vote, while his son Abdul Wali Khan worked relentlessly to bring about some degree of provincial autonomy for the majority-Pashtun region.

Today, Bilour – who was injured in Tuesday’s suicide — is contesting elections for a seat in the 342-member National Assembly of Pakistan, which is responsible for electing the country’s prime minister.

While courting his constituency in Peshawar, Bilour faces strong opposition in the form of the beloved cricketer-turned-politician, Imran Khan, head of the Pakistan Tehreek Insaf (PTI), which has not yet fallen out of favour with the Taliban.

But for people like Mushtari Bibi, a student in the political science department of the University of Peshawar, the choice is clear: “The ANP must win to establish peace and do away with militancy. If the ANP is kept out of politics, the country could fall to the Taliban,” the young student told IPS.

She says others parties have not openly criticised the Taliban as vehemently as the ANP.

The party has pledged to end militancy in this war-ravaged northern province that struggled against violence ever since the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan toppled the government in Kabul and sent thousands of militants fleeing into the mountains on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

The ANP has also launched major development projects here; between 2008 and 2013 the party established over 30 colleges and universities, distributed free textbooks to students up to the 10^th grade, built the province’s first ever children’s hospital, and provided scores of scholarships to girls in rural areas to promote women’s empowerment.

The top priorities in its political manifesto are eradicating militancy, ensuring women and minority rights and providing healthcare, education and employment to the people in northern Pakistan, millions of whom have been rendered homeless or jobless by the militancy.

Over the years, the ANP has also won the sympathies of many of the province’s 25 million residents for withstanding “a merciless campaign of violence, launched against it by militants”, according to Bilour.

The party’s 2013 election campaign began in the Gul Bahar area of Peshawar on Monday, Apr. 7, just a few short months after Bilour’s younger brother and former KP Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour was assassinated by the Taliban in a suicide attack in December 2012.

According to Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, the ANP has “sacrificed too much” to call off its campaign in the face of threats and intimidations.

In total, the group has lost 750 members to attacks by the TTP. Rather than allowing the terror to deter them, however, Bilour and his fellow party members are determined to see the race through in order to convey their message of peace to the people.

“If we take the Taliban seriously and sit home instead of campaigning for the election, it would amount to leaving the field quite open to them — and, by extension, the religious parties who have a soft spot for militants – to consolidate their power. We don’t want that to happen,” Bilour said ahead of his election meeting in the historic Qissa Khwani Bazaar, where British troops massacred over 400 unarmed, peaceful demonstrators in 1930.

This rally, like most public gatherings hosted by the ANP, is expected to draw upwards of 5,000 people.

Some, like Peshawar University doctoral candidate Shehnaz Begum, believe an ANP victory will only mean more bloodshed and violence. “If they (ANP) win, it could snowball into a major crisis because the Taliban would never spare them for their secular views,” she told IPS.

She also echoed an oft-expressed sentiment here, that the ANP should refrain from “siding with the United States” against the Taliban, and should denounce “liberalism”.

A rise in militancy in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has forced residents to flee in search of employment. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHWAR, Pakistan, Dec 16 2012 (IPS)

Fifty-nine-year-old Sherdil Shah, a resident of South Waziristan – a hotbed of militancy in northern Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) – used to run a modest grain shop that fetched enough money to keep his family of 10 well-fed and looked after.

That is, until a 2006 army operation against the Taliban destroyed his business and devastated the arable land on which he cultivated his grain.

After that, “We couldn’t use our agricultural land,” Shah told IPS. He was forced to sell his property for a paltry sum of money and, in a final act of desperation, sent his sons abroad to work – a decision that ended up completely changing his life.

His sons, both working in Dubai, a city in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), now send home about 1,500 dollars every month, enough for the entire family to live on comfortably.

Five years since the boys left for the Gulf, “I have bought a house in the adjacent Dera Ismail Khan district and started my business again here,” Shah told IPS over the phone.

Militancy means migration

Shah’s story is not an unusual one. A majority of the 5.5 million people living in FATA have been similarly affected by the decade-old militancy, which began in earnest in 2001 when U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in Kabul, forcing the militants to cross over to Pakistan and establish sanctuaries along the 2,400-kilometre-long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

FATA soon became infested with Taliban cells. As Pakistan emerged as a frontline state in the U.S.’ ‘war on terror’, armed forces poured into FATA in a full-scale military offensive in 2005 designed to root out the Taliban.

The army offensive, coupled with the militants’ resistance, made it impossible for civilians to carry on with everyday life.

Now, for the first time in years, people like Shah are finally starting to see improvements in their lives, as remittances from a younger generation of migrants who fled the region in search of employment abroad streams into FATA, easing the financial burden of unrelenting militancy.

Usman Wali once hailed from the Orakzai Agency, one of FATA’s seven tribal districts, which has been battered by endless violence. Life there was hard, with most families confined to their homes by the threat of the Taliban’s activities or army-imposed curfews.

Under the shadow of conflict, “We lost everything we had,” Wali told IPS. Even acquiring the basic necessities of life was a daily struggle, due to a lack of money and mobility.

“One day we decided to leave our ancestral village and take refuge in a government-run camp in the Hangu district of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

But life in the camp was like hell on earth, and soon the family of 13 knew they had no choice but to leave. “Then a local contractor took my two sons and a brother to Saudi Arabia, which changed our lives,” he said.

With the help of remittances from his family, Wali recently migrated to the nearby Hangu district and established a booming cloth business there.

“Now, we own a beautiful house and a cement business,” he added.

A daily wage labourer named Ghaffar Khan, from the violence-wracked Mohmand Agency says the radicalisation of FATA and an escalation in militancy ironically brought him benefits.

“In 2005, I earned about five dollars per day but now my daily income is more than 120 dollars,” Khan, who is currently on leave from his job in the emirate of Sharjah, the third largest in the UAE, told IPS.

His house in Mohmand Agency is still intact but his seven-member family has moved to the nearby Charssada district of the KP province due to the deterioration of law and order in their native village.

Khan returns home for a month every year to spend time with his family.

Abu Zar, an official at the FATA Secretariat, told IPS that the militarisation of the region has brought misery to many residents but has also fuelled a wave of migration to Gulf states like the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Oman, which is now helping people get back on their feet.

“Currently, more than 400,000 FATA residents are living and working in foreign countries”, up from less than 100,000 prior to 2005, he said.

“The younger generation has been going abroad in droves because of the prolonged insurgency”, in order to escape a sharp decline in trade, business opportunities and income in FATA, he added.

Akhunzada Mohammad Chittan, a lawmaker from Bajaur Agency, says immigrants from FATA have a reputation for being “extremely hard working. Once they land abroad they can earn a lot because they are honest and dedicated,” he said.

About 95 percent of the tribal residents currently working abroad are uneducated, and initially lacked skills, but have performed very well in their new jobs, Chittan added.

“I know at least 500 people who learnt skills such as driving, tailoring and carpentry before going abroad, showing their dedication (to starting life afresh),” he told IPS.

Adnan Ali, manager of a Peshawar-based overseas recruitment agency, says that the demand for FATA migrant workers in the Gulf is growing exponentially.

“Last month we sent 100 young men from different FATA areas to the UAE, Qatar and Dubai. All of them are very happy,” he told IPS.

According to Najamuddin Khan, an overseas employment manager, “We place advertisements in newspapers about various vacancies in foreign countries.

A majority of the respondents are youth from FATA who are desperately looking for work, he told IPS in Peshawar.