February 4, 2006	Saturday	Muharram 5, 1427

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LANDI KOTAL, Feb 3: A jirga of Afridi tribesmen continued its efforts to persuade a cleric to heed their call and leave the Khyber tribal region as soon as possible, officials and tribal elders said.

The jirga of the Malikdenkhel Afridi tribe headed by a influential tribal elder Haji Muhammad Rehman went into negotiations with Mufti Munir Shakir, the controversial cleric from Karak district, in a last-ditch effort to ask him to leave Bara, a sub-district of the tribal region.

Mufti Munir has been locked in a bitter rivalry with Pir Saifur-Rehman, a cleric from another school of thought, pouring scorns and exchanging profanities and abuses, making full use of the airwaves by operating illegal FM radio channels in the region.

All efforts by the government to shut down the illegal channels failed when both defied warnings and instead galvanised their tribal supporters against each other, creating a law and order situation.

A jirga of all seven sub-tribes of Afridi clans met last month and asked the government to order the clerics, both outsiders, to leave the tribal region, and even use force if they refused to comply.

Pir Saifur Rehman left Bara on Thursday along with his supporters and is reported to have moved to Nowshera.

The tribal administration is now focusing on Mufti Shakir and asking him to leave the area as soon as possible.

Mufti is reported to have told the jirga that he had convened a meeting of his own shura to discuss the government’s demand.

But a tribal elder, who is a member of the jirga, told Dawn that it had been made abundantly clear to the Mufti that he would have to leave as his rival pir had already left.

“He has no choice. He will have to leave,” Malik Muhammad Waris, a former parliamentarian, told Dawn.

But a defiant Mufti Munir said in a broadcast on his FM channel, he would leave the tribal region only if Pir Saifur Rehman, a refugee from Afghanistan, was banished from Pakistan.

“Leaving Bara means nothing. He should be banished from the country”, the Mufti said of Pir Saifur Rehman in his broadcast on Thursday evening.

The administration has moved paramilitary forces and Khasadars and deployed them around the residence compound of Mufti Munir. Locals have welcomeed the expulsion of Pir Saifur Rehman, and want the administration to expel Mufti Munir to restore normalcy in the tribal region.