Pakistan risks reigniting pro-Taliban tribal area

ISLAMABAD, Jan 17 (Reuters) - Pakistan's peace deals with pro-Taliban militants and tribal elders in the Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan were in jeopardy today, a day after an army air strike on suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

The timing of the attack, coinciding with a visit by U S Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Afghanistan, raised speculation that Pakistan was seeking to deflect U S criticism it was not doing enough to curb Taliban operating from its territory.

The strike -- by rocket-firing helicopters on a cluster of compounds that intelligence officials said housed men loyal to pro-Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud and half a dozen al Qaeda fighters -- risked stirring up a hornets nest in Waziristan.

Yesterday evening several hundred pro-Taliban militants, including Mehsud himself, gathered in Spinkay Raghza, 25 km north of South Waziristan's main town, Wana, for what had all the makings of a council of war.

A source who attended told Reuters that Qari Hussein, a militant leader who called the meeting, told his followers to be prepared to take up arms once more against the Pakistan military and government functionaries.

''You should get ready. We can't trust the government anymore.

Fighting can erupt any time. Be ready for our second call,'' the source quoted Qari Hussein as saying.

An intelligence official gave an even more dire version of events, saying South Waziristan's militants believed the army had broken a treaty signed in February 2005, and would attack troops and officials inside or outside their compounds.

A Reuters witness saw helicopter gunships flying from the army's fort in Miranshah, North Waziristan's main town, as dawn broke less than an hour before the attack on th mountain village of Zamzola, just inside South Waziristan.

North Waziristan tribal elders who signed a pact with the government in September last year feared that saying anything about what happened at Zamzola could jeopardise their own accord.

''We don't want to talk about it. If we speak against it or anything related to it, I know, our pact will be affected,'' Malik Gul Marjan, a Dawar clan elder, told Reuters in Miranshah.

Tribesmen who are against the militants have often been targeted and people fear antagonising either side.

''On the one side we have helicopters, and on the other hand, there is a knife, so we have no choice other than to keep our mouthes shut,'' said Mohammad Khan, a Miranshah shopkeeper.

MUSHARRAF'S DILEMMA President Pervez Musharraf had sought to stop clashes in the tribal lands becoming part of a wider conflict by striking peace deals in Waziristan, having lost hundreds of men over the past three years in campaigns against al Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

The use of force in the past appeared to harden support for the Taliban among the recalcitrant tribes of the area, and emboldened militants have since recruited men and boys to fight in Afghanistan or to become suicide bombers, residents said.

Musharraf says, however, the Taliban's greatest support base is inside Afghanistan and he wants President Hamid Karzai to put his own house in order.

But comments by Gates added to perceptions that patience is wearing thin, despite sympathy for the dangers Musharraf courts by carrying out military operations against his own people.

The army got a taste of militants' vengeance in November, when a suicide bomber killed 42 recruits. That came just days after a helicopter rocket attack on a militant cleric's madrasa, or religious school, in Bajaur that killed over 80 men and boys.

Although they are at opposite ends of the tribal belt along Pakistan's northwest frontier, Bajaur and the two Waziristans pose the greatest security risks among the seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies. Pakistan's southwest province of Baluchistan is said to be the other region where Taliban support is greatest.

The government has been increasingly worried that Talibanisation of the tribal areas could spill over to neighbouring settled areas.

REUTERS MS BS1721