One million Afghans staying illegally, PA told

PESHAWAR: NWFP Minister for Law Arshad Abdullah on Wednesday said that about one million Afghan refugees lacking valid documents were residing in different parts of the country.

He was responding to the question posed by Awami National Party’s lawmaker Shagufta Malik in the NWFP Assembly. She had drawn the government’s attention towards the harassment of the Afghan refugees by the police.

Arshad Abdullah admitted that the Afghan refugees were facing problems across the province, especially in Peshawar, for security reasons. Owing to the ongoing insurgency, everyone should have valid documents while moving around the city, he said. “If I don’t have my identity card, the police will not allow me to enter the city and can even arrest me,” the minister said.

The minister said the government would take action against police officials found involved in harassing the Afghan refugees. Speaking on a call attention notice, Shagufta Malik raised the issue of harassment of the Afghan refugees by the police for not holding valid travel documents.

She said that she had received several reports of Afghan refugees’ harassment even if they possessed valid documents and this was creating a bad image of the police among the Pakhtuns in Afghanistan.

She said the government should repatriate the Afghan refuges in a proper way instead of making life miserable for them in Pakistan. Talking on a point of order, PML-Q MPA Nighat Orakzai said some leaders of the ruling parties were using the word Pakhtunkhwa for the NWFP, which was not correct as far as there was no constitutional amendment. She urged all the political parties to unite against the insurgency and the worst kind of terrorism.

NWFP Minister for Housing and Physical Planning Amjad Khan Afridi presented the Defence Housing Authority Peshawar (Amendment) Ordinance, 2009. On behalf of the NWFP chief minister, Law Minister Arshad Abdullah presented the NWFP Public Service Commission Bill, 2010.

American Media Hostility Towards Pakistan: An Empirical View

By Zahir Kazmi

IS there a way to reassure the American print media that if left to itself, Pakistan can manage its domestic security situation very well? “We have the capacity to tackle our internal security environment”, reassured Pakistan’s former chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, while speaking at a recent launching ceremony of a book that dispels many myths about the genesis of South Asian nuclear deterrence.

Gen (retd) Ehsanul Haq, who has also been Pakistan’s top spy, was confident that this can happen if Pakistan is unburdened from some external loads – the situation on the Afghan border and Afghan refugees; Predator attacks by the US and sermons to ‘do more’; the lingering Kashmir dispute and India’s interference in Balochistan and along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

The general, however, missed another overload on Pakistan’s endeavours to gain stability and in turn prop up the troubled American-led Nato forces in Afghanistan. That burden on Pakistan-US relations is an unbridled segment of the American ‘free’ media that flails Pakistan occasionally for the safety and security of its nuclear arsenal. Though Pakistan’s policymakers and the American administration do not take the hostile segment of American media seriously, the latter somehow manages to antagonise the general public sentiment in Pakistan and rock the fragile relationship between the ‘disenchanted allies’.

In a way this media offensive serves well to fuel anti-Americanism in Pakistan, a sentiment even Hillary Clinton’s charm and persuasion could barely mollify. It may be possible to understand the motives behind this animus if one closely scrutinises the profiles of these journalists and sees how they make their living.

If it is not in the American administration’s interests to demonise Pakistan then who benefits from this act? J.K. Rowling’s phrase ‘you know who’ can help readers guess who the culprit is.

Explaining why he criticised Gen Pervez Musharraf in that morning’s paper while he actually liked him, a senior columnist of the most popular American daily made an off-the-record remark to a staff officer who accompanied a senior member in Musharraf’s entourage. He explained, “sir, after all I have to write for someone to make a living”.

The matter is not as simple as it seems. The American media’s hostility goes back to before 1947. The latest in the volley is Seymour Hersh’s article in The New Yorker that sent Ambassador Anne W. Patterson rushing to Pakistani TV channels to clarify that her government does not endorse such insinuations about the safety and security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. While there’s no evidence to prove that Mr Hersh works for ‘you know who’, his penchant for anonymous sources brings the Pulitzer Prize winner under a negative light. Recounting the American media’s pro-’you know who’ tilt, Dennis Kux quoted Henry Luce, Time magazine’s editor in August 1947, that the people of Karachi, “…did not welcome Pakistan with the wild enthusiasm that swept the new dominion of India. After all, Pakistan was the creation of one clever man, Jinnah; the difference between a slick political trick and a mass movement was apparent in the contrast between Karachi and New Delhi”.

In the pre-partition days Washington clearly supported the British and Indian stance of a united India. If the State Department was cool towards the idea of Pakistan, some US media commentators were positively hostile. The cover of the April 22, 1946 issue of Time pictured a grim-looking Jinnah and carried the caption, ‘His Muslim tiger wants to eat the Hindu cow’.

Commenting that “the Indian sun casts Jinnah’s long thin shadow not only across the negotiations in Delhi but over India’s future”, Time acidly described the political rise of Jinnah as “a story of love of country and lust for power, a story that twists and turns like a bullock track in the hills” (Kux, 2001).

Interestingly, there is a pattern to Pakistani statesmen’s level of comfort vis-à-vis the Americans and the masses’ disenchantment with the latter and their media. On May 1, 1947, while sharing his views on future relations with America Jinnah told a US diplomat that although he did not personally share the view, most Indian Muslims thought the United States was unfriendly. They had the impression that the US press and many Americans were against Pakistan (Kux, 2001)

The fresh wave of the media attack reinforcing the misperception that Pakistan’s nukes are unsafe came in the backdrop of last month’s militant assault on GHQ. One wonders why Washington-based journalists didn’t squeak about the safety and security of the American nuclear arsenal when the Pentagon was attacked on 9/11, or the safety of the British arsenal after London’s 7/7 terrorist attack, or that of India’s atomic bombs after last year’s Mumbai episode, or even that of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant that is within reach of Hezbollah?

On the contrary, relatively informed people in the United States and even in India endorse Pakistan’s claim that the initial vulnerability of Pakistan’s strategic assets is over and nuclear weapons are fully secure under multi-layered safeguards.

The people and leadership of Pakistan should not go for a knee-jerk reaction to such media offensives. Pakistanis can bear with Seymour Hersh and David Sanger for occasionally demonising Pakistan and learn from American administrations that have come under the former’s fire many times. As Dr Hasan Askari recently said, “nuclear weapons are not a source of instability, insecurity and arrogance for Pakistan. They are rather a source of confidence and responsibility”. Pakistan is a nuclear power and should behave like one.

The writer is a scholar of Strategic Stability and Nuclear Studies at the Faculty of Contemporary Studies, National Defence University, Islamabad.

Life in Kurram

Farhat Taj

Until recently when I heard about Sunni IDPs in Kohat from Parachinar, my own perception was that Parachinar was a 100 per cent Shia town and the Sunnis living there were Afghan refugees. I had this perception despite the fact that I belong to a Pakhtun area with mixed Shia-Sunni population that is not far from Parachinar. Moreover, I have seen Shias from Parachinar becoming victims of most barbaric acts of terrorism committed by the Waziristan-based Taliban.

I decided to meet the Sunni IDPs from Parachinar in Kohat. Later, I also had separate meetings with Shia and Sunni tribal elders from Parachinar. It turned out that there is a native Sunni Pakhtun minority in Parachinar: about 6,000 people. They belong to Zazi, Ghilji, Parachamkani, Ali Sherzai, Mengal, Muqbal and Utayzai tribes. The biggest tribe in Parachinar is Shia Toori. The Shia section of the Bangash tribe also lives there.

For centuries both Shia and Sunni tribes lived in peace under the tribal code of Pakhtunwali. Most disputes were peacefully resolved through jirga. Clashes were tribal rather than sectarian. In April 2007 there was a brawl in Parachinar among people linked with external sectarian organisations. The clash soured relations between Shai and Sunni Pakhtuns in the town. In November 2007 there was another clash in which many Sunni tribesmen, women and children were killed, their houses and businesses were burnt and a number of them were made to flee Parachinar. They now live as IDPs in many parts of NWFP.

In Kohat there are 120 IDP families from Parachinar. They live in a deplorable condition in rented houses. I saw sick children whose parents had no money to buy medicine. There were widows with no one to care for and children who wanted to attend school, as they did in Parachinar, but have ended up doing child labour. The IDPs alleged that the extremist elements within the majority sect in Parachinar rumoured that there were Taliban among them, encircled their neighbourhoods and staged the carnage. It makes it easier to kill your adversary if you name them as the Taliban, because the word Taliban has become a symbol of hate among the tribal people. They said that in some houses there were no men at the time of attack and minor children and women were besieged and fired upon. A mother told me of her son, Azam Khan, who she made to take up a machine gun and fire in defence. The boy was 14 years old at the time and a student of class seven. She said that she asked her son to kill her and his sisters before the attackers broke into their house. She wept and said that she wished to see her son become a doctor and never thought she would make her take up a machine gun.

They told me that for seven days they remained under siege. There was no food and water. No one came to help them. After seven days, a colonel came and ordered a house search in the neighbourhood in which he found no Taliban. Everyone was a permanent resident of the area. The residents were evacuated by the security forces to Sadda, a Sunni majority area outside Parachinar. From Sadda they went to various parts of NWFP where they now live as IDPs. They were of the opinion that the Shia extremists punished them for atrocities committed against Shias in other parts of Pakistan.

Later I had separate meetings with Shia and Sunni tribal elders from Parachinar to discuss the situation. There were accusations, counter-accusations, claims and counter-claims. Both sides showed me video clips depicting acts of terrorism committed against each side. Unless there is a proper impartial investigation, it is difficult to say who did what and how.

The fact is that both Shias and Sunnis have greatly suffered in sectarian clashes. Parachinar remained cut off from the rest of Pakistan for three years while Shias were publicly beheaded in areas outside the town. The other fact is that both sides have been abandoned by the state. For seven days the Sunnis were fired upon and no state help came. In two years many IDPs have not even been registered by the government. Those who have been registered by the government have received little state help. For Shias of Parachinar it is still very unsafe to travel on Parachinar-Peshawar road.

Both Shia and Sunni tribal elders hold state policies vis-a-vis Afghanistan responsible for the death and destruction in Parachinar. The Shia elders said that Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists ran into Waziristan after the US bombed them in Afghanistan. The terrorists sought passage via Parachinar to Kabul, because this is the shortest route to the Afghan capital. The Toori tribe flatly refused to provide the Taliban this safe passage and hence its current predicament where it is being punished by the Taliban.

Both sides hold individuals in official positions for playing a role in the ongoing tensions in Kurram and in particular Parachinar. The Shia elders alleged that two political agents of the area asked them to facilitate the Taliban’s movement or be ready for the consequences. Fortunately however, elders from both sides are keen to restore the excellent relations that the two groups have always had in the past. They agreed that in essence the sectarian tension in Parachinar is the tribal rivalry between the Toori, who are Shia, and the Mangal, who are Sunni, over resources like land and water. Had there not been so many external forces involved, the Toori and Mangal tribes would find a solution while the rest would act as bystanders. Due to external pressures, both Tooris and Mengals have dragged other tribes into the rivalry along sectarian lines. One group of tribal elders accused a foreign-funded jihadi madressah around Parachinar of spreading sectarian violence. The other group of elders held a religious scholar from Gilgit and interference by one of Pakistan’s neighbours as being behind the atmosphere of intolerance. Elders of both sects also alleged that a local, with links to the Sipah-e-Sahaba, was fomenting the sectarian disharmony.

The mainly Sunni Ali Khel tribe in Orakzai agency stood up to the Taliban when they threatened the Shia section of their tribe. Both Shia and Sunni tribal elders met in a grand jirga to work out the details of an anti-Taliban lashkar. The jirga was attacked by a suicide bomber, killing over 100 tribal elders. Orakzai was taken over by the Taliban after the mass killing of the Ali Khel tribal leadership and everyone – the majority Sunni and minority Shia and Sikh communities – suffered under the Taliban occupation.

In any civilised society the majority has a responsibility to protect the minority. It is the turn of the Shia tribal elders of Parachinar to do what the Ali Khels did in Orakzai.

The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@yahoo .com

A Muslim Solution for Afghanistan

Let Muslim nations, not Western coalition, lead the mission to bring peace there.

By Arif Rafiq

Herndon, Va. – After eight years of US involvement in Afghanistan, a strategic crossroads within Asia, the country remains a deadly conflict zone. In fact, this weekend insurgents attacked two US military bases along the Pakistani border.

Helping Afghanistan stand on its own – an imperative for both regional and Western states – is a task that will take decades. But it is increasingly clear that it is not one that the West can perform.

On one hand, a Western-led occupation force in Afghanistan has brought the most stability and progress the country has had in three decades.

But the US-led coalition’s very presence in this land between the Indus and the Oxus rivers in Central Asia fuels an indigenous insurgency. It keeps the flame of transnational terror alive and blocks the return of Afghan refugees to their villages. The US presence also curbs the flow of potential energy pipelines, and, most critical, the forging of a permanent peace.

The Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan is gaining ground and Western casualties are mounting. The attack this past weekend was the deadliest since last year, killing eight Americans and four Afghan security officers. The Pentagon’s solution is an expensive, population-centric counterinsurgency that involves more nation-building than warfare. But such a move is out of tune with domestic developments.

A majority of Americans, particularly Democrats, oppose the US war in Afghanistan. They tend to see little connection between Afghanistan and their own security. Opposition to involvement in Afghanistan among other NATO member states is even greater. And the resolve of America’s coalition partners is nearly exhausted.

However, a precipitous Western withdrawal from Afghanistan would leave a major void in the state.

Afghanistan is factionalized, pockmarked by ethnic and tribal divisions. Its government’s sole success is an election rigged in its own favor. Warlords run much of the country. The national Army and police are years away from being able to secure the country on their own. Other state institutions lack the minimal human and financial resources to function without external crutches.

US and Western troops should leave. But because Afghanistan will remain dependent on international aid for development and security, troops cannot leave without something to fill the vacancy.

The solution? Muslim and regional states must fill the void.

Much of the Afghan insurgency is oriented against the presence of non-Muslims in this almost exclusively Muslim land. Taliban statements, for example, describe the US-led coalition as “crusaders” and equate it with previous invaders, such as the British. Sensitivity to the non-Muslim military presence in their homeland gives Afghan insurgents common cause with Al Qaeda, which directly threatens the US at home and abroad.

But the most intransigent of Afghan rebels will be receptive to peacekeeping and nation-building with Muslim states as long as their factions are included in a power-sharing arrangement in Kabul.

The Organization of the Islamic Conference, the association of more than four dozen Muslim states, should set up an Afghanistan contact group, led by Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey. The group would lead a coalition of Muslim states responsible for political reconciliation, peacekeeping, economic development, and governmental capacity building in Afghanistan.

Wealthy Muslim states such as Malaysia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates can provide funding. Members of NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes China and Russia, can also contribute donations and offer expertise.

But the military presence must be limited to personnel from Muslim states. Given Afghanistan’s problematic relations with its neighbors, peacekeepers should come from nonneighboring Muslim states, including Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Jordan, and Turkey.

Many of those nations have valuable experience to offer. Bangladesh, for example, is a leading troop contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions. Turkey (a NATO member) and the UAE already have a physical presence in Afghanistan. Peacekeeping in Afghanistan would be a natural extension of their present foreign missions.

Egypt, Pakistan, and Turkey have the most developed bureaucracies and armies among Muslim states. They can help train the Afghan civil, foreign, and security services. A Muslim-led mission in Afghanistan would offer middle powers such as Egypt and Turkey an opportunity to revitalize regional leadership roles they once had. It would also provide regional rivals Iran and Saudi Arabia with a platform to constructively resolve a problem integral to their security concerns and interests.

And a number of international organizations, such as the Islamic Development Bank as well as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, should help continue to rebuild Afghanistan’s economy.

Through the auspices of the Pakistani Army and Saudi royal family, this plan can be presented to the leader of the Afghan Taliban, Mullah Muhammad Omar. Via his official spokesman, Mullah Omar has made clear he is willing to talk to the Kabul government, but only in the context of the US-led coalition’s withdrawal.

His representatives and those of other regional militant commanders can be joined with a wide scope of Afghan political, religious, and tribal leaders in a loya jirga, or grand council. It could take place in Kabul or another Muslim capital, to set up a transitional coalition government amid a phased Western withdrawal.

In the interim, the US, in concert with Pakistan, must continue to root out the foreign jihadi presence along the border with Afghanistan.

Having Muslims lead the mission to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan would create a wedge between Afghan insurgents and transnational jihadists, such as Al Qaeda, the elimination of which is the Obama administration’s major goal in the region.

Ultimately, Al Qaeda will be given a decisive blow when Muslim states rise to the challenge and bring stability to Afghanistan.

Arif Rafiq is president of Vizier Consulting, LLC, which provides strategic guidance on Middle East and South Asian political and security issues.

Preparing for contingency

If the present is any guide, the country is in for a difficult task of rehabilitating the internally displaced of the Malakand region. Their rehabilitation is clearly a multibillion-rupees proposition. But given the international community’s lukewarm response to the mitigation of this populace’s distress, it is unrealistic to think if foreign assistance will be forthcoming in any big way for the gigantic task of its rehabilitation. All the government appeals for help in providing immediate relief and succour to these internally displaced have, so far, drawn only a big blank from the Muslim fraternity and the European community. The UN too has failed to mobilise international emergency humanitarian assistance any measurably.

From this, it appears that in all likelihood Pakistan will be on its own in rebuilding the shattered lives of these displaced. Not much should it expect reasonably from the international community on this score. It will predictably have to rely largely on its own resources to rehabilitate the displaced populace. And it will be insane on the government’s part if it does not prepare for this contingency right now. It must borne in mind that the world opens up its coffers generously for the stricken in the event of natural calamities. But in the case of man-made catastrophes, it is often found very stingy; and selective too. In such eventualities, its responses are arguably determined largely by national geopolitical considerations and domestic sensitivities. When the erstwhile Soviet Union invaded and occupied Afghanistan, the entire “free world” rose up in unison to come to the aid of the Afghan refugees.

The western nations chipped in massively with cash and in kind to provide succour. And so did the Muslim fraternity by and large. The reason for their large-heartedness is not difficult to discern and comprehend. It was primarily for the west’s ingrained enmity to the communist superpower that saw it loosening its purse-strings liberally for the Afghans, displaced by Moscow’s naked adventurism. And it was the religious affinity with the alien-occupied fraternal people that drove the Muslim fraternity to rush with all kinds of assistance for their relief. And although certain western nations, prompted mainly by their own hatred of the Khartoum government, though egged on no lesser by their special interest groups and Christian charities, are providing humanitarian assistance for the displaced of Sudan’s Darfur province, there is not much of international relief concern for them. There indeed are a huge lot of internally displaced people all over the world who are not drawing even a nodding notice of the international community, except the relief agencies and aid organisations, which is routine to them. Same seems to be the case so far with these displaced of Malakand. Some international aid agencies are at work for their relief and succour. The international governmental assistance is as yet largely conspicuous for its absence. So far, the relief effort is predominantly our own. Foreign aid commitments, if any, are still commitments, yet to be translated into actualities. And make no mistake about it, the rehabilitation will be almost wholly our own task, if the present indications are any guide.

At best, niggardly doles may flow in; not much will be on offer. In any case, these displaced are our own people. They are our own blood and flesh. And we have to care for them at any rate and in any event. And for that the administration has to be prepared and ready, for which the federal government has to shoulder all the responsibility. Leaving the job to the ANP-led Frontier government is simply asking for the trouble, so inefficient, so incompetent and so ineffective has it shown itself to be in handling just the relief effort for these displaced. Expecting it to tackle the enormously gigantic task of rehabilitating them is just asking for the moon. For a start, the federal government must task a team of experienced and expert senior officials to think out ways and means to mobilise the resources locally for this rehabilitation work and launch some innovative investment schemes to mop up the people’s savings to this end as well. The team must prepare a feasible and pragmatic contingency plan to fund this huge work indigenously maximally. If by some quirk of miracle foreign assistance does pour in measurably for the task, well and good. If it doesn’t, at least this contingency plan will be there to work on to provide a measure of help to the displaced to somewhat rebuild their shattered lives. We would warn the administration that the absence of such a plan altogether would lead up to such an enormous public discontent and grouse as it would fail utterly to pacify, to an unbearable grief to our national cohesion, stability and solidarity. Living in illusions, dreams and hopes, we tell the administration, is the fools’ act. Wise men live in reality and act to realities. And that reality in the instant case is that we have largely to undertake the rehabilitation work of the displaced on our own and have to do it by ourselves.

Plight of Pakistan’s displaced

By Barbara Plett
BBC News, Katcha Ghari camp near Peshawar

Children do not have many facilities at Katcha Ghari camp but they do at least receive an education

Last year Pakistan finally closed camps that had housed Afghan refugees for three decades. During the past six months it’s been forced to reopen them, this time for its own people.

In the Katcha Ghari camp near Peshawar, at the edge of abandoned and crumbling Afghan homes, row after row of tents stretch into the distance.

They are divided into clan and family groupings and separated by neatly packed dirt roads, lending an air of permanence to a temporary village.

This is the other side of Pakistan’s battle against the Taleban and al-Qaeda.

Huge cost

More than half a million people have been displaced by the fighting in the tribal belt near the Afghan border. And American plans to intensify the conflict in the border region could deepen the crisis.

Already the government is struggling to cope.

The residents of Katcha Ghari camp are both angry and confused

Thousands of homes have been destroyed by military operations, particularly in the tribal area of Bajaur.

The army has declared victory, saying it has won back territory from the militants. But this has been at a huge cost to civilians.

Many have fled to the camps, many more have squeezed in with relatives or rented cheap accommodation. They are not sure it’s safe to return, and few have anything left to go back to.

Some of the tents in Katcha Ghari serve as makeshift classrooms. These provide a refuge from the conflict for children. Their schools have been targeted by militants, and used as bases by the army.

For girls especially, school is the plus side of homelessness. Bound by the conservative tribal culture, they are rarely educated.

But 12-year-old Samina Khanpur has just had the opportunity to finish kindergarten and enter first grade.

She remembers bombing raids, and cowers in her tent when planes fly overhead, but comes eagerly to learn her lessons.

Flattened

“I miss my home,” she says, “but the school is the one good thing about this place.”

Otherwise camp life can be very difficult for women, accustomed to strict segregation from men who are not family members.

There will be more displaced people coming to this region

United Nations agencies have set up canvas walls around clusters of tents to give women more privacy.

We enter one of these with Zaman ur Rehman, a subsistence farmer who has two wives, 16 children and 20 grandchildren.

There are men in our party, so the women conceal themselves in one of the tents for the duration of the visit.

Mr Rehman tells us his home has been flattened. He considers himself lucky because it was bombed after he left, although one of his children died during the family’s flight from Bajaur.

Camp life is hard, but he is not moving unless he gets government help.

“If there’s peace we’ll go back,” he says, “but after all we’ve suffered, we should be compensated, so we can go and rebuild our houses.”

That is the consensus in the camp.

“We can’t do anything else,” says a teacher, Abdul Haleem. “They’ve destroyed the whole village, the whole market. There are no hospitals, no schools, no teachers in Bajaur. They’re all here.”

Mr Haleem and the camp dwellers are angry with the military and confused. They tell me they do not understand a war that punishes civilians. They want the army to make peace with the Taleban, even defend the militants against the Americans.

“The Taleban have stood up against bombardment by US missile strikes, and the army should tell the Americans to stop this!” says Mr Haleem.

The government of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has appealed to the federal authorities and international donors to supply funds not only for relief, but return and rehabilitation.

Crime rate

Currently it is planning to provide services for the displaced until the end of the year, but by then, others could swell their ranks.

US President Barack Obama has declared Pakistan’s border region the most dangerous place on Earth. It seems likely that conflict there will increase in the coming months, including more American missile strikes.

The children in the camp face an uncertain future

If so, “there will be more displaced people coming to this region”, says the province’s Social Welfare Minister Sitara Ayaz.

“We know how difficult it was when they first came and it still is for us. So it’s a concern for us, if more people come here and if they are not going back, then it will be a very big problem. The crime rate could increase. When you don’t have food and shelter, a lot of things happen.”

It’s already a big problem: recent clashes at another camp between police and protesters demanding compensation left one person dead, raising fears of further unrest if the displaced do not get money soon to rebuild their homes.

Mr Obama calls Islamic militancy a cancer that is destroying Pakistan from within. But for many of the tribespeople, the cure seems as deadly as the disease.