Pakistan has new plan to quiet militants; U.S.-aided effort fails

WASHINGTON – A U.S.-backed plan to defeat Islamist militants in Pakistan’s autonomous tribal areas has backfired badly, and the Bush administration is working with Pakistan to come up with a new strategy to defuse the insurrection.

Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf “sees that what he was doing wasn’t working,” said one U.S. official who is familiar with the new plan. “He really has a mess.”

Now Musharraf’s government is attempting to negotiate truces in the areas, expand local police forces and introduce development projects to reward tribal leaders who break with the militants. The Bush administration has pledged millions of dollars to the new effort, said the official, who, like others familiar with the plan, spoke only if granted anonymity.

Ending the uprising by Islamist militants aligned with Osama bin Laden and Taliban rebels is crucial to American-led efforts to contain the worst surge in Taliban violence in Afghanistan since 2001. The bloodshed is adding to the Bush administration’s woes in the Middle East and other fronts in the war on terrorism.

Pakistan deployed 80,000 troops in the areas, which border Afghanistan, at Washington’s behest to hunt down bin Laden and his sympathizers and secure Pakistan’s side of the border. The Bush administration reportedly has spent nearly $1 billion since 2003 to underwrite the Pakistan army’s operations.

But the army’s use of artillery and helicopter gunships – as well as U.S. airstrikes on suspected al-Qaida hideouts – has killed numerous civilians and stoked popular ire.

That anger has given rise to a movement for an independent Taliban-style Islamist state. In some parts of the autonomous areas, militants have banned music, set up Islamic courts and executed opponents, including tribal leaders.

Fighting has claimed hundreds of lives on both sides, displaced thousands of civilians and stoked ethnic frictions because the tribes are minority Pashtuns and most of the troops are majority Punjabis.

The militants continue harboring al-Qaida fighters and providing recruits and refuge to Taliban rebels fighting in Afghanistan against government, U.S. and NATO forces.

Some American officials and independent experts fear that it may be too late to defuse the uprising in two of the seven tribal areas, southern and northern Waziristan.

Musharraf opened truce negotiations with militant leaders. Under the truces, the army would pull back into garrisons and towns and act only to thwart major threats.

In its place, the Bush administration would provide millions of dollars for a massive expansion of the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary police force recruited from the tribes and led by regular army officers, and other tribal police units.

The Pentagon also has secretly been training and equipping a new Pakistani special operations force to pursue al-Qaida fighters hiding in the tribal areas.