16 January 2005	Sunday	05 Zilhaj 1425

PESHAWAR, Jan 15: Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah said here on Saturday the problem of foreign elements still persisted in South Waziristan Agency and urged the tribesmen to remain cautious as the terrorists would try to regroup in the area.

He was talking to a 25-member delegation of the Shabikhel branch of Mehsud tribe during a meeting at the Governor's House. The government had credible information about their presence in the Mehsud area, he said, and added that the Mehsuds would have to be cautious as part of their collective responsibility to forestall any anti-state activities taking place in their area.

Mr Shah said the government neither had nor would have any grudge against the Wazir or Mehsud tribes of South Waziristan. "What the government expects from these tribes is that they should fulfil their collective responsibilities and keep their areas free of unwanted and anti-Pakistan elements, mostly foreigners," he stressed.

The governor said shelter to any outsider in the tribal area should be given only under a certain mechanism in which the respective tribe would have to give surety of good conduct of the outsider.

If the government could be generous to millions of Afghan refugees in providing them shelter, it could also accommodate these few hundred foreigners but with the surety of their good conduct, he remarked.

Referring to the army action in South Waziristan, the governor said had there been no terrorist training camps, the government would have never resorted to apply force.

"We have the documentary proof and video films showing these people getting training in the terrorist camps in Mehsud areas and we have shown these proofs to the Fata parliamentarians as well," the governor said, adding that these camps were being run very openly, but the local tribesmen had been overlooking it.

He urged the tribesmen to join hands with the government to crush the terrorist elements and get rid of 'this cancerous problem'. "We don't ask you to offer any major sacrifice except to cooperate with the government and the security forces by identifying their presence so that they could be dealt with effectively.

This is part of a collective responsibility, shared by every individual in the tribe," he asserted. Regarding Abdullah Mehsud, the governor said this man not only kidnapped the Chinese engineers, he also killed one of them and, thus, tried to make tense very cordial and friendly relations with Pakistan's time-tested friend China, which "has been helping and assisting us in our national development".