Pro-Government Militias
Documentation for Tribal Militia / Lashkars
Dec. 18, 2001 Agence France Presse -- English
"We have deployed regular troops, paramilitary forces, local police and tribal militia to plug all possible entry and exit points," a senior army official told AFP.
He said local tribes were helping the operation while helicopter gunships were patrolling
Jan. 27, 2002 The New York Times
Dec. 24, 2003 The Pakistan Newswire
March 29, 2004 BBC Monitoring South Asia
The Mahsud Jerga, according to some of the participants of the meeting, resolved that there was no need for military operation in their area. They said the gathering decided to ask the government to identify the suspects and their hideouts and then leave it to the tribe to initiate action against them.
May 22, 2004 BBC Monitoring South Asia
The halt to the Lashkar's operations on a daily basis was decided on a day when the country's top security officials, including those from the NWFP North West Frontier Province , met in Islamabad to review the situation in South Waziristan and formulate new strategies to tackle the crisis.
Meanwhile, Brig (retd) Mahmud Shah told The News that failure of the Ahmadzai Wazir tribe and its Lashkar to hunt down the illegally-staying foreigners in South Waziristan would prompt the government to consider other measures to achieve its objectives. He said collective punishment under the Frontier Crimes Regulation could also be taken against the tribe. However, he added that the government was still hopeful that the Lashkar would either nab the wanted men or make their Wana area inhospitable for them to stay there.
Oct. 27, 2004 The New York Times
Nov. 1, 2004 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Jan. 19, 2005 BBC Monitoring South Asia
xxx is the third office-bearer of the Amn Committee, Makeen who has been targetted by local and foreign militants. .. The government and the military authorities had rewarded the Amn Committee, Makeen, with cash prizes and development projects for their area in recognition of their contribution in the fight against local and foreign militants.
Meanwhile, the Shabikhel Mahsud sub-tribe on Tuesday formed a peace committee and decided to raise a 3,000-member Lashkar to hunt down militants in their area. The elders of the Shabikhels said this was done on the request of the governor of the NWFP North-West Frontier Province
July 6, 2006 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Paramilitary forces had taken over the three sub divisions, Bara, Jamrud and Landi Kotal, of Khyber Agency after the emergence of Lashkar-i-Islami last month. The organization had announced enforcing their own laws in the area, with imposing different range of fines over committing a sin.
The chief of the organization, Mangal Bagh, has claimed he has nothing to do with Taleban neither his Lashkar is a parallel army in the region. "It is just a reformative organization for the betterment of the tribesmen of Khyber Agency. I have the support of 98 per cent local populace and those who are against me are the people involved in wrongdoings," a bearded young commander, who once was a cleaner, claimed.
Oct. 1, 2006 The New York Times
April 5, 2007 The Associated Press
Officials say local tribes mustered a wave of new fighters
Gen. Pervez Musharraf, .. has failed to prevent Taliban militants from finding sanctuary and support in the same region for their insurgency in Afghanistan.
However, the government has cracked down more visibly on suspected al-Qaida affiliates. It scaled back army operations in the border region last year under a series of agreements for tribal leaders to disarm or expel foreigners living there.
The Pakistani government claims the recent bloodshed vindicates its strategy of relying on tribal leaders to combat militancy.
On Monday, a council of elders in Wana, South Waziristan's main town, declared jihad, or holy war, against the Central Asians, accusing them of disregarding local traditions and killing tribesmen, and beat traditional war drums to raise a militia.
The army insists it is not directly involved in the fighting, though it has suggested that troops may respond with artillery if they come under attack. Four army troops were killed at the weekend by rocket fire.
The main commander of the tribal militia battling the foreign militants is xxx, a known Taliban sympathizer who the government says has come over to its side.
U.S. officials say Musharraf's dealmaking with fiercely independent tribal leaders has failed to curb crossborder attacks by the resurgent Taliban against foreign troops in Afghanistan.
July 16, 2007 Agence France Presse -- English
Oct. 24, 2008 International Herald Tribine
The lack of consistent army and government support has left some tribesmen feeling betrayed. About 1,000 tribesmen were meeting Oct. 10 and had just decided to form a lashkar when the suicide bomber, armed with perfect intelligence for a pre-emptive strike, killed more than 100 tribesmen and wounded many more.
The next day, government forces struck back in Orakzai, but helicopter gunships hit more civilians than militants, forcing a large number of people to leave the area and providing space for the militants to occupy, residents of the area said.
The Pakistani military is counting on the tribal militia to work as localized forces and to pick up some of the burden of the heavy fighting that is now concentrated in the Bajaur part of the tribal belt. (…)
Even in the best of times, there are basic unwritten rules about the tribal militia in Pakistan that limit their impact.
The Pakistani military, for example, can lend moral support but not initiate a tribal militia, the generals said. The lashkars come with their own weapons, food and ammunition. They have their own fixed area of responsibility, and are not permanent.
Indeed, great care is taken to make sure the lashkars do not become a threat to the military itself.
''We do not want a lashkar to become an offensive force,'' said one of the generals, who spoke frankly about the lashkars on condition of anonymity. For that reason, the military was willing to lend support artillery and helicopters but would not give the militias heavy weapons, he said.
Nov. 4, 2008 Washington Post
Nov. 11, 2008 Washington Post
"They are between the devil and the deep sea," said Akhunzada Chitran, a tribal representative from the Bajaur area. "On the one side, there is the Taliban, but on the other side, they are being forced by the government to fight the Taliban or flee or the government will bomb them. It's a very difficult choice to make, but we have made up our minds to take on the Taliban." (…)
The Pakistani government, meanwhile, has extended only minimal support to lashkars that have chosen to face off against the well-trained and well-armed Taliban, tribal leaders say. "The government is not providing us with arms and ammunition. The nature of their support is that whenever there is a clash, they give air cover or cover by artillery fire," said Chitran, the tribal representative. "Sometimes when there is a suicide blast, they give us medical facilities. But even that is not much. It's usually just first aid, and what they give is very minimal."
Nov. 23, 2008 The Washington Post
The militias, called lashkars, will receive Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles and other small arms, a purchase arranged during a visit to Beijing this month by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari,
July 22, 2009 Christian Science Monitor
The Army has provided some heavy guns to the lashkar, along with some skilled men to operate it, but those have also been taken back now, said one elder who wished not to be named.
The Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force under the Army that is in charge of Dir security, denies this. "Everything provided from Day 1 is still with them. Nothing has been withdrawn," says Maj.Fazal Rahman, the spokesman for the Corps.
"We are providing them all sort of moral and material support," he continues. "They [the lashkar members] keep complaining to get more and more from government agencies, and I think we have already given them enough to fight these militants."
Oct. 2, 2009 The Guardian
Last weekend Khan raised a force of 2,000 men at a giant public meeting on a disused airstrip. Some turned up with Kalashnikovs and shotguns; others were armed with pitchforks and sticks. Now the militias, or lashkars, as they are known, is being organised into squads of 20 to 40 men to patrol the streets at night and flush Taliban infiltrators out of the community. (…)
Afzal Khan Lala, an 82-year-old politician and tribal khan, refused to leave Swat in the fighting, even after being shot twice in an ambush. Suggestions the Taliban are an expression of wealth inequalities is "rubbish". "This talk of class warfare has been cooked up in Islamabad and Lahore," he said, blaming instead deep-rooted failures of politics and governance. The lashkars, which he insisted on terming "village defence committee", were a crude but necessary interim measure, he said. "The government's first duty is to protect the life and property of its citizens," he said, sitting on a rope bed as white-bearded elders streamed in to meet him. "Today it can't do either. So now the citizens have to protect themselves."
Oct. 5, 2009 The Statesman (India)
Three commanders were among six militants killed by security forces during an operation at Banjar, the army-run media centre in Swat said.
One security personnel was injured in the operation. Security forces and members of a Lashkar or tribal militia killed three militants and captured 16 others during a search operation near Najigram, the military said in a statement.
Nov. 22, 2009 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Feb. 16, 2010 BBC Monitoring South Asia
"The Government is providing full monetary, material and moral support to these Lashkars and now the militants are on the run," told Minister for States and Frontier Regions Najmuddin Khan in a written reply to National Assembly in question hour session.
Quami Lashkars have been formed in different agencies and Frontier Region (FRs) Peshawar and Bannu, he said responding a question about the steps taken for the security of residents of FATA. He said that ultimate aim of all these actions was to restore the writ of Government so that the tribesmen could lead normal life.
March 11, 2010 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Sources said the lashkar, backed by the political administration, launched action against militants in different areas of the Mamond tehsil, once a stronghold of the Taleban. During the operation, houses of 13 alleged militants wanted to the government were set on fire by the volunteers. The lashkar also seized arms, explosives and vehicles from their hideouts.
Meanwhile, nine militants wanted to the political administration laid down arms and surrendered to the lashkar. The lashkar will hand over them to the political administration.
Dec. 7, 2010 Washington Post
But the basic idea is the same: Proponents say the Pashtun tribes of the rugged Afghanistan-Pakistan border region best know the area and its inhabitants, have a stake in securing their villages and are skilled with weapons.
And, as in rural Afghanistan, supporters note, there are few other options in the remote, lawless hamlets of Pakistan's tribal belt, where there are no federal police. That lashkars are targeted is a sign of their success, said Naveed Malik, who recently retired as the top police official in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, where he pioneered the use of lashkars as a homegrown Taliban waged an insurgency against the government in 2008.
"That is how the cities have been saved," he said, citing a drop this year in attacks in Peshawar and other northwestern cities. "They relieve the police from working 14 to 18 hours a day."
Indeed, Pakistani media frequently report on the anti-Taliban exploits of laskhars, hundreds of which are estimated to operate.
When the lashkar program began in Pakistan, U.S. officials described the move as a promising sign of Pakistani resistance to the Taliban. But Lt. Col. Michael Shavers, a U.S. military spokesman, said American military assistance to Pakistan does not fund lashkars.
In a report this year to Pakistan's Parliament, a federal minister responsible for the nation's frontier regions, Najmuddin Khan, said the government is "providing full monetary, material and moral support to these lashkars," according to Pakistani news reports. In interviews, however, security officials acknowledged that the program was never systematized and that arms, training and payment were given only on a case-by-case basis. (…)
Human rights activists say the lashkars inhabit a disturbing gray area. Though they are not formally trained in law enforcement, they are, in practice, encouraged to kill and capture suspected militants. In one recent incident, a tribal militia torched 13 houses of alleged insurgents in the Bajaur tribal area.
July 5, 2011 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Official sources told Dawn that a large number of militants attacked Jawaki village of Frontier Region of Kohat from the Ghareeb Khel Mountain. The said mountain separates Darra town from other semi-autonomous areas of Kohat.
The volunteers of the lashkar fought with militants for more than one hour and repulsed them, sources said. The volunteers established a check-post at the mountain after frustrating the designs of militants.
Jawaki has been under constant attack by militants, who had enforced their own style of shari'ah in the area in 2007. The tribesmen of the area have formed a lashkar of about 300 armed volunteers to ward off attacks of militants and block their entry into Kohat. The lashkar arrested a suicide bomber recently and handed him over to security forces.
July 11, 2011 BBC Monitoring South Asia
This is the second ever pro-government tribal armed lashkar in Khyber Agency to be formed following the formation of Zakhakhel tribe lashkar that was organised some three months back.
May 12, 2012 BBC Monitoring South Asia
The Adezai anti-militant lashkar (militia), who had been fighting militancy along the borders of tribal regions Darra Adamkhel and Khyber Agency, was dissolved on Thursday.
"The continued lack of support from the government and refusal to provide assistance that was promised to the volunteers has forced the lashkar to quit," Chief of the Adezai Peace Committee Dilawar Khan told reporters.
"The government has withdrawn its support to the strong force of more than 5,000 volunteers, who had been at the forefront in the fight against insurgency in the area," Khan said.
July 8, 2012 BBC Monitoring South Asia
A source said that for the first time the residents of Pastawana, a far-flung area in Frontier Region of Peshawar, formed a peace committee and took arms against militants.
He said that Pastawana was once considered a base camp of militants, who used to enter the area via Kohat, Nowshera, Khyber Agency and Peshawar to carry out sabotage acts.
However, the area was cleared when Safwat Ghayyur was commandant of Frontier Constabulary (FC) [paramilitary force]. But militants recaptured Pastawana after withdrawal of FC. They also occupied the properties of pro-government tribal people after forcing them to leave.
The source said that formation of an armed lashkar [tribal militia] against militants was difficult as the area had forests and its population was scattered. However, security forces cleared the area and secured the hilly strategic points.
The source said that the armed lashkar was recently formed but it was very active. Its leaders decided to get support of the rest of peace bodies in the tribal and settled areas to block entry of militants, he added.
Aug. 12, 2012 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Military authorities and tribal sources said heavy clashes between Pakistani security forces backed by the pro-government armed lashkar [tribal militia] and the militants continued for the fourth consecutive day.
June 3, 2013 BBC Monitoring South Asia
Renamed as peace committees, the tribal militias are to be scaled up phase-wise with the involvement of the local communities comprising the ethnic tribes against the home-grown militants as well as those targeting the security forces from across the border.
Initially, nine peace committees, six in Kurram and three in Khyber Agency have been formed with the military's direct support, according to an informed intelligence source. (…)
He said that the military and government officials had assured the peace committees' members' foolproof security and safety to their lives and properties. "The locals had certain reservations considering the fatal attacks waged on the members of pro-government tribal militias in the past. We've addressed their reservations. God willing, the committees would be spread to different parts across FATA in the coming times," he said.
Dec. 26, 2014 Xinhua General News Service
The Taliban militants attacked and killed a tribal elder, Badsha Khan, Thursday on suspicion of his supporting the government.
The security forces and the tribal militia chased the attackers at Jamrud, a main town in Khyber agency, and killed Saddam in the "successful operation", the official said. He said that six other Taliban militants were injured and arrested after the two-hour clash.
"The terrorists tried to flee after killing the tribal elder; however, the security forces and 'khsadars' (tribal militia force) frustrated their attempt," Shah said, adding that the security forces had also conducted operations in the area.