PAKISTAN: Pakistan's ongoing military campaign against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces hiding in South Waziristan, one of the country's seven semi-autonomous federally administered tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, has a twofold objective.
More than 100 people, including dozens of security personnel have died in the fortnight-long operation.
It is an endeavour to "pay back" Washington for turning a blind eye to revered Pakistani atomic scientist A. Q. Khan's public confession in February of proliferating nuclear equipment and secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea for which he was swiftly pardoned by President Pervez Musharraf.
But more crucially, the assault is an effort to extend Islamabad's control over the turbulent, rugged and mountainous tribal region, populated by over six million warring Pashtuns, that has remained fiercely independent for centuries, but is currently simmering with discontent and murmurings of rebellion.
Security sources claim that Gen Musharraf's bold, but dangerous gamble of mobilising thousands of soldiers backed by artillery and helicopter gun ships for the assault in South Waziristan, is intended not only to deliver a "high value" al-Qaeda leader to the US in an election year, but also to initiate the process of militarily controlling the 800-1,000 km long region known as FATA with a view to eventually demarcating Islamabad's nebulous frontier with Afghanistan.
Dominating the tribal regions, were it ever to become possible given its violent history and seeming invincibility, would help Gen Musharraf's besieged military regime neutralize the re-emergence of the long standing demand for Pashtunistan, an independent Pashtun homeland.
This territory is broadly envisaged as being centred around the seven tribal territories with the adjoining Pashtun-dominated region in Afghanistan to its north and Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and portions of neighbouring Baluchistan to the south and south-east. Pakistani military officials recently declared that around 70,000 troops have been deployed in and around the FATA, NWFP and Baluchistan with the ostensible aim of combating al-Qaeda and Taliban members.
But the Durand Line, the unformulated demarcation between Pakistan and Afghanistan drawn arbitrarily in 1893 by Col Durand and casually agreed to by Afghanistan's ruler, Amir Abdur Rehman, has kept alive the Pashtunistan issue which, if ignited, could become a veritable nightmare for the region.
A rash of hit-and-run attacks, including three rockets fired into the heart of Peshawar, the bustling gateway to the Khyber Pass, has raised fears about the conflict spreading. "What we now fear is that there could be an overflow of these events to other tribal agencies," said former interior minister Mr Naseerullah Babar.
The tenuous Pakistan-Afghanistan border failed to divide the Pashtuns or stifle their desire for independence which despite frequent intra-tribal feuds, has survived until today.
Belonging to over 80 tribes, the Pashtun are a semi-nomadic people with over 15 million living in Pakistan, including the tribal areas, and around 11 million in Afghanistan.
"As insurance against an unsympathetic government in Kabul, Gen Musharraf is keen on firming up the Durand line and establishing a military presence in the FATA as he can ill afford a (Pashtun) insurrection on his western front," a Western intelligence officer said. In the Kashmir dispute Pakistan hopes to gain territory. But on the Pashtun issue, it eventually stands to lose it if it does not defuse the brewing crisis in time, he added declining to be named.
Realising the seriousness of the Pashtun issue, Gen Musharraf has bought peace with nuclear rival India by entering into negotiations with New Delhi earlier this year on a range of issues including disputed Jammu and Kashmir province.