In Pakistan's South Waziristan, hopes that Taliban's exit will bring progress
Sat 07 Nov 2009
A man from South Waziristan waits for food aid at a camp in Dera Ismail Khan along with others forced from their homes by the military offensive. South Waziristan's Mahsud clans say the Taliban is the reason they lack telephones, electricity and paved roads.
Reporting from Bhakkar, Pakistan-- The Mahsud tribesmen of South Waziristan don't hate the Taliban. But they hate what having Taliban fighters living among them has done to life in their mud-hut hamlets.
The Taliban presence has made their villages frequent targets for U.S. missile strikes. It has prevented schools and hospitals from opening and roads from being built. Many villages still do not have electricity or phone lines.
As people stream out of South Waziristan to escape the all-out blitz against the Taliban, they say they back the offensive, if only because it represents their best -- and only -- hope for a clean break from the misery of isolation.
"Though we weren't directly threatened by the Taliban, all of the hardship and suffering we face is because of the militants," says Ali Khan, 33, a shopkeeper from the Taliban-ridden village of Makeen. "When these militants go, we expect schools to start up. We want to live the life that's led elsewhere in Pakistan."
As many as 155,000 people in South Waziristan have fled the fighting as 30,000 Pakistani troops take on an estimated 10,000 Taliban militants entrenched in concrete bunkers and networks of caves and tunnels built into the region's desolate plateaus and mountainsides.
The Taliban presence has made their villages frequent targets for U.S. missile strikes. It has prevented schools and hospitals from opening and roads from being built. Many villages still do not have electricity or phone lines.
As people stream out of South Waziristan to escape the all-out blitz against the Taliban, they say they back the offensive, if only because it represents their best -- and only -- hope for a clean break from the misery of isolation.
"Though we weren't directly threatened by the Taliban, all of the hardship and suffering we face is because of the militants," says Ali Khan, 33, a shopkeeper from the Taliban-ridden village of Makeen. "When these militants go, we expect schools to start up. We want to live the life that's led elsewhere in Pakistan."
As many as 155,000 people in South Waziristan have fled the fighting as 30,000 Pakistani troops take on an estimated 10,000 Taliban militants entrenched in concrete bunkers and networks of caves and tunnels built into the region's desolate plateaus and mountainsides.
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