PESHAWAR, April 12: Elders in the South Waziristan tribal region on Monday remained locked in negotiations to seek surrender of the wanted militants to the government.
An inter-tribal jirga held discussions with the Zalikhel-Ahmadzai Wazirs in the regional headquarters of Wana for the second day and later proceeded to Shah Alam, about 13km from there, to meet three of the five most wanted tribal men.
Eyewitnesses reported seeing militants armed with rockets and mortars having taken positions in the surrounding hills to ward off any possible attack from Pakistani forces based in the nearby Zari Noor Colony.
Officials reached on phone in Wana confirmed that an inter-tribal jirga comprising elders from the other six tribal regions met Zalikhel tribesmen to find ways of resolving the contentious issue that has claimed scores of lives.
Sixty-two soldiers and paramilitary troops were killed last month in a military operation against foreign militants and their local protectors in the Azam Warsak area.
The ISPR has put the figure of deaths on the military and paramilitary side at 46 and on that of the militants at over 60. The government has claimed to have captured 163 militants - of them 113 have been found to be Afghan refugees and the remaining 50 are local tribesmen.
They are being questioned by a joint interrogation team of various civil and military intelligence agencies at an army camp near Attock. Witnesses said that a jirga of about 24 tribesmen, including 14 elders from the inter-tribal jirga, met Nek Mohammad, Sharif and Noor Islam in Shah Alam to persuade them to give up arms and surrender.
The meeting began at around 11am and continued until 3pm. "The militants talked mostly about religion and Jihad. Nobody could have disagreed with what they had to say," said one witness.
He said that Nek Mohammad, the top-most wanted man, said he and his men were mujahideen and not terrorist. "We are fighting in the way of Allah with our lives. It does not matter if we are killed," he told the jirga.
Nek accused the paramilitary forces of initiating the firing on March 16 when, he said, two of his men had been killed while going out to prepare for the early morning prayers. "We were forced to fire back," he said.
A tribal elder reached on phone said the jirga would meet the wanted men again on Tuesday to resume their negotiations. He said that the militants could agree to settle the matter through 'riwaj' (local custom) and live peacefully under guarantees furnished by their Yargulkhel tribe.
But one official acknowledged that 'riwaj' was an open-ended term and they would find out more about it when the jirga concluded its deliberations and came up with a solution. "We have not given any undertaking," the official said. "We are keeping our options open."
