Secular Pakistani wins Taliban support
Posted: Wednesday, March 05, 2008 1:10 PM
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Islamabad, Pakistan
By Carol Grisanti, NBC News Producer
PESHAWAR, Pakistan – "I am not Taliban," Kamran Khan told me. He could not have been more emphatic. "I am not a fundamentalist, I am not a terrorist, I am not an extremist," he said with a seriousness that belies his years.
The 25-year-old Khan is the newly elected parliamentary representative from North Waziristan – the area believed to be the command and control center of al-Qaida along the remote and rugged Pakistan-Afghanistan border.
Just last month a U.S. military strike on a safe house in the area killed one of Osama bin Laden’s top commanders, Abu Laith al Libi. The house was being used as a training camp to plan attacks on U.S. forces across the border in Afghanistan.
According to Khan, only one percent of the local population supports the militants. The local people are fed up with the violence, the beheadings, and the daily fear. They want to live in peace, he said. They want to see an improvement in their lives.
But the reality is much more complex. The Northwest Frontier and the tribal areas are polarized. On one side are the new young leaders like Khan, who want to bring an end to the violence, and on the other are the hard line militants who want to establish an orthodox Islamic state inside Pakistan.
A secular moderate supported by Taliban
In Pakistan’s Feb. 18 parliamentary elections, Khan ran as a secular candidate on an independent ticket – and won.
He defeated his opponent – a hard-line religious cleric – in a region where the Islamic militants hold sway, by calling for change. And even more surprising, the Taliban supported Khan.
"My first priority in the parliament is development," said Khan. "We have no hospitals, no roads, no drinking water." He also said he wants to tackle issues like the inequality of women. "There is no education," he said. "I want our women to be educated. They should become doctors and teachers."
With such an ambitious social program, I said that it sounded like he was calling for a rebellion.
His response was that, "Militancy will go away with jobs."
Khan termed the $750 million development grant for the tribal areas that the U.S. has promised as too small an amount to win over the tribes in the war on terror.
He explained that the tribal areas have essentially been left alone for 60 years, since the end of the British Empire on the Indian sub-continent, and that people are desperate for change and progress. "The people are angry," said Khan. "The rest of the world has moved forward, [but] we still live with no electricity and our women walk for long miles carrying water on their heads." Khan explained that like it or not, people take help from whoever is offering it, "so they turn to the militants and they turn to the clerics."
Taliban help get out the vote
In the days before the recent parliamentary election the local Taliban militants urged people to come out and vote. Armed with their AK-47’s the militants patrolled the streets and provided protection at campaign rallies for each of the candidates. The Frontier Corp, the government’s paramilitary force stationed in North Waziristan, kept a distance.
On Election Day, groups of Taliban, armed to the teeth with AK-47's, sat outside each polling station drinking tea – they were there to insure the vote went off as planned. The Taliban promised the people that the elections would be fair, free and peaceful – and they were.
"Look," Khan tried to explain this latest phenomenon. "You Americans can’t understand that the local Taliban are not foreigners. They belong to the people, they belong to the society, and they belong to our tribes. You cannot keep bombing them – you cannot keep killing them," he said. "This is a wrong policy of America."
And that’s why Khan’s story is so compelling.
Camera-ready
We met in Peshawar, the dusty capital of the Northwest Frontier Province – just 200 miles from North Waziristan. These days Khan shuttles back and forth between his tribal home and the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, often stopping over in Peshawar. He is a man on a mission.
He walked into the room where I was waiting for him, smiled broadly and shook my hand. (Now I was sure he wasn’t Taliban – the hard-line Islamists don’t shake women’s hands.) We sat on the floor covered by a large red central Asian carpet. Sodas, sweets and tea were served.
Then Khan quickly got up and disappeared. He came back wearing the elegant black and white stripped turban of his tribe. He was ready for the TV camera.
"Negotiations with the people, with the Taliban [are] the solution of the problems." And that’s the message Khan is taking to the new government leaders in Islamabad.
Khan says the tribes are angry with the policies of America. "America knows no other way but to use force," he said. But he wants people to know that the inhabitants of the tribal region are not one monolithic group.
Complex region
North Waziristan is the largest of the seven federally administered tribal areas along the Pakistan Afghanistan border. The two main Pashtun tribes, the Wazirs and the Mehsuds inhabit the area. They are constantly feuding with each other; that is until it comes time to unite to expel the foreigners.
In his book "The Pathans" (another name for Pashtuns), the British foreign service officer, Sir Olaf Caroe explained the difference between the tribes.
"The nearest I can get to it," Caroe wrote in his book, "is to liken the Mehsud to the wolf and the Wazir to a panther. Both are splendid creatures; the panther is slier, sleeker and has more grace. The wolf pack is more purposeful, more united and more dangerous."
Khan is a Wazir. He is from a prominent family, educated and the son of a doctor.
His arch rival is the wanted terrorist Baitullah Mehsud, the self proclaimed leader of a united Pakistani Taliban from the Mehsud tribe. Mehsud has claimed responsibility for the many recent suicide bombings wracking Pakistan. The CIA has ample proof that Mehsud was involved in the assassination of former Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto last December. Khan doesn’t recognize Mehsud as any leader.
"We have nothing to do with him," he said.
And now the Pakistani army with the help of U.S. intelligence is planning a major operation to go in and get Mehsud.
On that, no comment from Khan.
