ISLAMABAD, Oct 19, 2009 (AFP) - Pakistani fighter jets and ground troops are pressing a major anti-Taliban offensive on three fronts in South Waziristan, part of the country's fiercely independent tribal belt on the Afghan border.
The seven tribal districts -- known as agencies -- are outside direct government control. Thousands of Islamist extremists have exploited the lack of control and weak state security forces to carve out sanctuaries.
Here are facts about the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA):
-- Seven districts (agencies): Bajaur, Khyber, Kurram, Mohmand, North Waziristan, Orakzai and South Waziristan.
-- Most of the four million residents are Pashtuns, the ethnic group with a rigid code of revenge dominant in Afghanistan. Many refuse to recognise the British-drawn Durand Line, which divides the two nations and splits families.
-- The FATA has representatives in Pakistan's parliament and is under executive authority of the president, but national legislation does not apply unless expressly ordered by the president.
-- The Pakistani president appoints a governor for North West Frontier Province who also oversees the FATA and is answerable only to the head of state.
-- The FATA is governed through the Frontier Crimes Regulation set up in 1901 by colonial rulers from British India keen to curry favour with fierce Pashtun fighters who resisted any attempt at colonisation.
-- Each agency has a state-appointed administrator known as a political agent. Justice, law enforcement and local government are dispensed by locally appointed tribal leaders and councils of elders, known as jirgas.
-- In a keynote speech in March, US President Barack Obama branded the mountains, ravines and caves of the border region "the most dangerous place in the world".
-- US officials say Al-Qaeda fled into the FATA after US-led operations toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, and is now using the area as a base for plotting attacks on the West and the region.
-- The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement headed by Hakimullah Mehsud is based mostly in South Waziristan, although there is strong militant influence in all seven agencies.
-- The TTP is believed to have 20,000 to 25,000 fighters across Pakistan's tribal belt, and 10,000 to 12,000 in South Waziristan.
-- Pakistan's current assault is its sixth major operation in the FATA since joining the US-led war on terror. More than 2,000 Pakistani troops have died fighting Islamist militants. Past operations have achieved little.
-- South Waziristan has a population of about 600,000 people, but officials say more than 100,000 civilians have fled since August in advance of the latest offensive.
-- The Mehsuds are the biggest tribe in South Waziristan. The Wazirs, the second largest, live on the Afghan border and are allied to the government. A small faction of Mehsuds has also signed a peace deal with the government.
-- US missile attacks in the FATA have killed nearly 600 people, including significant Al-Qaeda leaders and former TTP warlord Baitullah Mehsud.
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Received by NewsEdge Insight: 10/19/2009 05:57:41
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