Suchergebnisse

Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan has been in the spotlight since 9/11. This tiny piece of land is crucial to all: a determinant of the military outcome in Afghanistan for international community; a strategic space for its hostile ally, Pakistan, for its ambitions in Afghanistan and beyond; a home to al-Qaeda, a special place in its mythology. Prospects of international and regional peace hinge on the situation in FATA; understanding its people and their ground reality has, thus, been more important than ever. Based on extensive ground research in FATA, Taliban and Anti-Taliban reveals the indigenous tribal people s blood-soaked relationships with the Taliban, Al-Qaida and the Pakistani military establishment and its intelligence apparatus. The book uncovers the heroic armed and non-violent struggle of the local population against the Taliban and Al-Qaida. It also documents the tribesmen s feedback on some of the high profile literature authored in relation to FATA since 9/11 and exposes serious drawbacks in the writings of some of the famous FATA 'experts' in the world. Tribal resistance to the Taliban and Al-Qaida has been widely ignored in international academic and policy discourse, and in media reporting on the war on terror. Knowledge and understanding of this resistance is immensely important for people in the wider world to determine friends and foes in the global war on terror. Taliban and Anti-Taliban fills the void for the first time since 9/11. This book is a must read for anyone and everyone interested in knowing what is going on inside FATA, the region dubbed as 'the most dangerous place in the world' by the US. -- Book Description

The notion of security denotes freedom from threats. Ontological security implies emancipation from threats to core values that identify a person or a state. This article demonstrates the Pak-Afghan relationship as a case in point. It offers a relatively new perspective for understanding the continued contentious relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It argues that the Pashtun state identity of Afghanistan mismatches with the Islamic identity of Pakistan. This causes cognitive anxiety over self-identity in both states, which confronts their respective ontological (in)security challenges. Consequently, both countries engage in dangerous routines of self-identity affirmation to manage their ontological (in)securities. The routines often have harmful consequences for the civilian population, especially in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan.

This article discusses the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement's (PTM) demand for establishing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) to facilitate the right to truth of victims of the war on terror in Pakistan. It highlights the tension among the right to truth, geopolitical considerations, and historiography in pursuit of transitional justice under a stable regime. It argues that Pakistan is not likely to establish a TRC due to its geopolitical considerations vis-a-vis Afghanistan. It, however, also underscores that PTM as a pressure group could contribute greatly to realising several human rights based right claims of the war victims, if it disengages itself from the anti-Pakistan Afghan diaspora.

Local tribal councils have organised traditional forms of militia to resist displacement caused by the Taliban in Pakistan's borderlands with Afghanistan. Adapted from the source document.