The rising militant activities in the just relaxed Kurram Agency have once again put the credibility of the recently concluded peace deal in question. A lethal suicide attack on the Doaba Police Station in Hangu that left 8 people dead and 25 injured on March 24th was one of the deadliest activities that hit the area during the last couple of weeks. The killing of a shia community member in the busy Qissa Khawani bazaar in Peshawar came as a starter. The following day, an attack on the Attock-bound vehicle near Mamu Khwar in Doaba left four people, including a woman, dead. 13thof March dawned with another bloody activity in which Mangal tribe attacked a passenger vehicle to kill 12 persons of the Turi tribe prompting the police party led by Station House Officer Haleem Khan to kill three persons in retaliatory act. The SHO had to bear the brunt of consequences in the shape of a remote control bomb attack on his mobile party. SHO was amongst his 11 colleagues who sustained injuries in the said incident.
In the continuing wave of violence, on March 25th, the militants attacked three passenger vehicles killing and injuring 8 persons each respectively. The militants kidnapped the rest of the 45 persons along with the three vehicles from the Bagan area of lower Kurram. This was the third such kind of attack on the passenger vans carrying people belonging to the Turi tribe since the peace deal was concluded on February 8th this year. A few days ago, armed men led by a militant commander Sattar Wazir had abducted 20 men from the same area in Bagan with four more from a neighborhood Paraw on gun point. Similarly, the fate of the two young kids belonging to Turi tribe who were abducted from Makhezai area a few days ago is still not known.
The rising militant activities have sent a shocking wave across the Kuramites in general and the shia community in particular prompting the tribal elders to convene a jirga and demand an immediate action against the people involved. Expressing his deep concern over the growing unrest in the area, a shia leader and Ex-senator Allama Abid Al Hussaini urged the government to sense the gravity of the situation otherwise things may go wrong. He demanded of the government to take concrete steps and save the recently concluded agreement from being jeopardized.
Tired with the year’s long conflict in their area the excited Kuramites were still celebrating the recently concluded peace deal but their hopes soon dashed to the ground when the recent militant activities put the very agreement at stake. According to the agreement the main Tall-Parachinar road was to be opened immediately for all kind of traffic which will be followed by the next phase- rehabilitation of the displaced people commencing from March 5th. A committee comprised of Sunni and Shia leaders with parliamentarians and officials of the political administrations was assigned with the task to sort out modalities on how to make arrangements for the relocation and rehabilitation of the people and pay damages to the displaced people who have lost properties, nears and dears in the last few years of the conflict. In their last meeting with the Prime Minister Sayed Yousuf Raza Gillani in Islamabad the Jirga members were successful to make the premier announce a package of Rs 1.7 Billion (I billion for this years and the rest for the next year) as compensation for the damages done during the years long conflict in the area. Things with its smooth sail were right on the track but this situation would hardly suit the trouble makers hence the peace efforts were sabotaged once again.
Due to its strategic location, Kurram Agency has always been the first choice of the militants. It connects the tribal areas of Pakistan to Afghanistan through lower and upper Kurram hence providing an easy outlet to the intending militants to have a free movement from and to Afghanistan whenever they want to. In lower Kurram, Shaheedano Dand and Ahmadi Shama points provide the militants an easy outlet to Afghanistan’s Zazi Maidan and Maqbal areas of Khost province. The Tari Managl routes under their control give them a passage to Zazi area in Paktia province across the border in Afghanistan. The other outlet from the central Kurram that passes through the Tirah valley in Khyber Agency is already under the control of the Taliban. The Fazal Saeed Haqaani’s-led Taliban in Kurram Agency made every effort to get control of the Borki and Kharlachi outlets that connect Parachinar in Upper Kurram with Afghanistan but the locals, who knew their intentions, would never give up on it. However, the militants have been striving hard to get control of the Borki and Kharlachi outlets at any cost.
In the wake of a long awaited and much debated military operation in North Waziristan, the militants, if came in control of the Borki and Kharlachi posts, may find Kurram agency as the most comfortable sanctuary. With this area at their disposal, the Taliban will feel more comfortable to move all the ways leading from North Waziristan up to Kurram. Khyber agency will remain another option but the most feasible option with them will remain Kurram. To save the agreement from being jeopardized, the government should immediately come forward to get it implemented in letter and spirit by securing the roads, devising a transparent system for the compensation money to be paid to the effectees and making a solid strategy for the relocation of the displaced persons. Otherwise, once things went wrong, bringing it back on the right track would really be a challenge.
The statement of the Anti-Taliban militia in Adizai, Peshawar, Mr Dilawar Khan should be an eye opener when he said that the peace lashkar will soon join the Taliban if the government did not come to its rescue. The statement came after a suicide attack on the funeral ceremony in Adizai that claimed 37 lives while injuring over 60. A similar statement from the members of the Grand Tribal Jirga of North Waziristan in response to the Dattakhel drone attack speaks in the same tone. Flanked by other tribal elders, Malik Jalal Khan Wazir in a press conference in Peshawar declared that they have permitted their loved ones to carry out suicide attacks against the Americans. He further said they would take revenge of the killings of their elders in such a manner that it would be remembered in history. This declaration should not be taken as an ordinary threat because once the suicide attacks become socially permitted; its consequences would indubitably be ruinous.
