Wana is headquarters of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that extends 27,220 sq km along the Afghanistan border and has been the target of US missile attacks for weeks now. Believed to be hiding amidst FATA’s six million people are Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, his lieutenant Ayman al-Zawahiri and a band of their armed followers, flushed out from Afghanistan along with the country’s former Taliban rulers, by the US and its allies.

FATA consists of the seven ‘agencies’ of Khyber, Kurram, Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai, South and North Waziristan, populated by Pashtun tribes that are sympathetic to the Taliban. Bajaur was hit by US aerial attacks on January 13, killing 18 civilians in Damadola village, according to intelligence agencies, and top Al Qaeda members. The strike on the Bajaur agency sparked off a row between Pakistan and the US and is expected to come up at meetings in Washington, this week, between Pakistan PM Shaukat Aziz and US leaders.

While Al Qaeda’s topmost leaders remain free, the real victims of the aerial attacks and coordinated action by the Pakistan army in FATA are its impoverished residents who have begun to flee for the safety of Peshawar and other Pakistani towns and cities. Pakistan and US troops are said to have drawn up a ‘hammer-and-anvil’ strategy against the Al Qaeda in the FATA but appear to be making little headway while chalking up ‘collateral damage’ among the civilian population.

At any rate, the ‘war on terror’ has brought ordinary life in FATA to a standstill, as residents flee the agencies for safety. Two years after the war began, whatever little infrastructure existed in these parts, such as schools and medical facilities, have crumbled away. ‘’Doctors, paramedics and nurses are afraid of being posted in South and North Waziristan Agencies because no one can be assured safety,’’ said a doctor, who took bullets in his chest fired by militants but survived. FATA is out of bounds for foreign journalists while local media persons are under constant threat from militants and security forces.

Chashma Kali, Qutabkhel, Serbandki, Derpakhel, Miramshah, Eisokhel, Emarki, Mosaki, Eidak, Milagan and Khushali Toorikhel are the areas worst affected by army raids from where hundreds of families have moved out, abandoning their homes. About 100 pro-government elders and their relatives have been killed in South Waziristan over the last year while the death toll on the army side has crossed the 100 mark since January, when the military began its operation against foreign and tribal militants in South Waziristan. Of late, the militants, described by the army as a combination of Al Qaeda, the Taliban and local recruits from among young, unemployed men incensed by the army raids, have intensified attacks on troops. While the military has been denied any collateral damage in its operations against foreign militants and their local sympathisers, the general perception is that there is little trust between the tribals and Pakistani authorities. — IPS