WANA / MIRAMSHAH: With upwards of 110 military posts having been abolished in South and North Waziristan, the number of check-posts in the two tribal agencies has been reduced drastically, according to senior military officials posted there.

Maj Gen Azhar Abbasi — the General Officer Commanding of 7 Division, who is responsible for security in North Waziristan — told journalists in Miramshah that the number of posts in the agency had been reduced to just five from 35.

Maj Gen Abid Latif, the Inspector General of Frontier Corps (South), said the number of posts, which stood at 35 at the start of the year, had been reduced to eight.

The journalists who were flown to the two agencies were told that with an eye on border security, the military officials had bifurcated the Frontier Corps (FC) into two wings — north and south. The FC north is headquartered in Peshawar and the FC south in Wana, the main city of South Waziristan.

While officials in South Waziristan said the paramilitary FC was gradually taking over security duties from the army in the agency, those in North Waziristan said that military presence was necessary in the agency so that hard-fought gains were not reversed.

However, the military officials said the reduction in number of posts had nothing to do with the protests launched by the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement. Rather, they termed the development a “fruit of normality”.

Maj Gen Latif, who heads the southern wing of the paramilitary force, said the force under his command would have 40 wings, comprising about 32,000 personnel.

Officials in both the agencies said that repatriation of the temporarily displaced persons (TDPs) was nearing completion.

They said that about 98 per cent of the TDPs, who were forced to flee some 356 villages in South Waziristan, had returned to their homes. The remaining two per cent would return before Ramazan.

In North Waziristan, officials claimed that 97 per cent of the TDPs had returned home.

They added that fencing of the border was under way and the process would be completed next year. So far 30 kilometres of the border had been fenced in South Waziristan and 70 kilometres in North.

Published in Dawn, May 5th, 2018