'Fiercely Independent' Clan Accused of Harboring Al-Qa'ida in Pakistan

The clan accused of harbouring Al-Qaeda (Al-Qa'ida) militants in a tribal area of Pakistan near the Afghan border has a long history of repelling outside attempts to control them, commentators say.

The otherwise obscure Yargulkhel people have attracted international attention as a result of a week-long operation by the Pakistani army to flush out foreign Al-Qaeda loyalists thought to have found refuge with clan members.

Army commanders believe some 500 foreign militants and their Yargulkhel supporters are holed up in mud fortresses that they have surrounded.

"The Yargulkhel, who are totally involved in criminal activities, are part of the local support network for the terrorists," Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain, commanding the operation, told AFP earlier this week.

An ethnic Pashtun sub-tribe, the Yargulkhels come from South Waziristan, one of the seven tribal agencies in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

Their traditional livelihood is the smuggling of goods between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"They are very brave people and they have always been fiercely independent. They are warriors, always armed, and they are not subject to any outside laws," Iftikhar Ali, a Pakistani commentator, told AFP.

"Even the British army never tried to impose their rule on them. They declared that the army could not intervene in this area and so these people have always ruled themselves."

Even today, the tribal areas remain largely autonomous with their own government and laws based on tribal traditions.

Pakistani and US authorities believe that following the defeat of the largely Pashtun Taliban in Afghanistan, many Al-Qaeda militants took refuge with sympathetic members of the Yargulkhel.

Ali said the foreign militants would have found broad support among the Yargulkhel clan, but following the US invasion of Iraq that support is likely to have been replaced by a more pragmatic attitude among many Yargulkhels.

The tribal people realised that if the Pakistani army did not take action to expel the foreign extremists it could give the Americans an excuse to take military action, he said.

As a result, the Pakistani army's attempts to gain a foothold in the region by carrying out development work, building schools and hospitals, were not resisted as they once might have been.

"They didn't want to ruin their peace. They knew that the Americans were furious about the foreign fighters being sheltered and they knew that if the Pakistani army didn't carry out operations to find them, the Americans would," he said.

"They also realised that times have changed, and they know the importance of schools, roads and hospitals. So there was no resistance."

Another commentator, Rahimullah Yusufzai, a leading Pakistani journalist and expert on Afghan affairs, said many members of the clan had left the tribal area to seek work in the Gulf states and the Middle East making them relatively well off.

Others ran shops in South Waziristan's main town Wana.

"Like other tribal people they are conservative and religious. As a result of their living so close to the Afghan border it just happens that some of them have taken part in the different wars in Afghanistan.

"Some were part of the mujahedin fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, others joined the Taliban, and subsequently they helped some of the foreigners who were part of the Taliban.

"Four of the five people who are most wanted by the Pakistani authorities for sheltering foreign militants are Yargulkhels."

But the two commentators differed on whether the Yargulkhel clan will yield to requests to surrender their "guests".

Ali said he expected the foreign extremists would eventually agree to hand them over.

"After an offensive like this by the Pakistani army, they know that things can't go on the way they are with their houses being searched and destroyed. They know it will destroy their peace and their way of life."

But Yusufzai said the clan members protecting the militants were beyond persuasion.

"The tribal elders from this tribe and others have been promising the government that they can deliver but the requests they have passed on have all been refused. I do not think it is within their power."