WASHINGTON, Dec. 28 (UPI) -- Pakistan is now trying about 30 soldiers who refused to fight tribes backing Taliban and al-Qaida suspects, Pakistani intelligence sources told United Press International.
Pakistan launched a military operation in March 2004 against terror suspects and their local backers in a tribal belt called Waziristan along its long and porous border with Afghanistan. Waziristan is the home to fiercely independent Pashtun tribesmen who also have a large representation in the Pakistani military.
The sources said that all 30 soldiers were detained in South Waziristan after they defied orders to fight tribesmen who Pakistani authorities suspected were protecting al-Qaida and Taliban suspects.
"Waziristan was an eye-opener for the government," said a senior Pakistani intelligence officer who did not want to be identified. "That's when they realized that not all Pakistani soldiers support (President Pervez) Musharraf's decision to join the U.S.-led war against terrorism."
On Dec. 21, UPI reported that a Pakistani military court had sentenced a soldier to death for sympathizing with al-Qaida. Mohammed Islam Siddiqui was arrested during the military operation in Waziristan for refusing to fight Taliban and al-Qaida suspects and their local tribal backers.
Later, the military establishment also accused him of inciting two other soldiers, Hafiz Mohammed Ashfaq and Hafiz Salahuddin, to rebel against Musharraf.
The charge sheet also accused Siddiqui of receiving six capsules containing poison from a non-commissioned officer of the Air Defense Regiment, Mohammed Younis. This charge indicated the existence of more al-Qaida sympathizers within the military because the capsules were meant to be used by these sympathizers if arrested.
On Dec. 24, the military's chief spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, confirmed that a military court in Pakistan sentenced one soldier to death and another to 10 years hard labor for conspiring to assassinate Musharraf.
"The soldiers were involved in the attack against the president on Dec. 14, 2003, in Rawalpindi," a city close to Islamabad, Sultan said. "The court found them guilty of the charges," he added but gave no details.
There were two close attempts on Musharraf's life in December 2003. He survived, but at least 15 security guards were killed when two suicide bombers rammed an explosive-laden car into the presidential cavalcade on the Christmas Day last year.
Sultan did not mention al-Qaida while confirming the sentences, but soon after the attempts Musharraf blamed al-Qaida for the attacks. And later, Pakistani authorities also announced arresting several al-Qaida suspects in the case.
Pakistani authorities are particularly sensitive to the reports of their soldiers' disenchantment with the government's pro-U.S. policies and deny that soldiers have been arrested for defying orders during the Waziristan operation.
Although newspapers in Pakistan's northwest frontier province, which borders Afghanistan, have regularly reported instances in which Pakistani soldiers refused to take action against terror suspects and their tribal backers, Pakistani military authorities say such reports are incorrect and sensational.
But intelligence sources told UPI that on several occasions soldiers refused to fight the tribes backing al-Qaida and Taliban suspects, and about 30 soldiers were arrested for defying orders.
U.S. and Pakistani authorities believe that hundreds of terror suspects took refuge in the 1,000-mile long tribal belt that separates Afghanistan and Pakistan. This rugged and inaccessible mountainous region is difficult to secure, which allows the militants to crisscross the border at will.
U.S. military officials, who guard the Afghan side of the border, say the suspects often use their tribal hideouts for raiding U.S. and Afghan government targets inside Afghanistan and escape to the Pakistani side of the border when chased. Recently, U.S. and Afghan forces launched at least major offensives in this area, which considerably reduced the cross-border attacks.
The Pakistani military has long ties to the tribes living in this area and has often recruited soldiers from there. Some elements within the military also developed a soft corner for Islamic militants during their long association with the Afghan jihad.
The ties between the militants and the Pakistani military began in the early 1980s, when militants from across the Muslim world were brought to Pakistan to train and fight Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan.
The United States, which supplied arms and training facilities for these militants, withdrew its support to Muslim jihadis after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989. But Pakistan retained its links to the jihadis and used them also to create problems for India in Kashmir, a region it has disputed with India since 1947.
South Asian experts in Washington say that it was during this period that some elements in the Pakistani military became attached to the militants, and some still sympathize with them, a charge Pakistan denies.
Musharraf joined the U.S.-led war against terror after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, severing Pakistan's ties to Afghanistan's Taliban regime. He also allowed U.S. forces to use bases inside Pakistan for operations against the Taliban. Al-Qaida and the Taliban sympathizers say that this played a key role in causing a rapid collapse of the Taliban regime and want to avenge their defeat by punishing Musharraf.
