--- title: "Waziristan: The Terrorist Training Ground" description: "There is a land in Asia quite unlike any other. For centuries, a warrior people have attempted to defend it at all costs. It has been one of the most dangerous places in the world, and at times was host to some of the most dangerous people in the world. This is a place where terrorists go to school, where an ongoing jihad over a decade long is just the latest in a series of jihads that are over a decade long. We are talking about Waziristan. Some of you might never have heard of it, as it is just a small section of a formerly semi-autonomous region on the Afghan border. There are so many questions a place like Waziristan stirs up. Who are the people defending this land? Why do extremists flock to it like a moth to a flame? And how has a line on a map drawn in the 19th century led to thousands of deaths, war and suffering? You're about to find out. This is everything you need to know about Waziristan.\n\n## Where in the World Is Waziristan?\n\nWaziristan as an area is around 11,585 square kilometres, or 4,500 square miles, in size. It sits on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the North West of Pakistan. The border is known as \"the Durand Line\" from back when the United Kingdom colonised India in the 19th century. Waziristan's territory roughly lies between the Gomal River in the South and the Kurram River in the North. However, the entirety of Waziristan itself is also split in half administratively, creating what is known as South and North Waziristan. That's not all though, Waziristan was originally a part of the \"FATA\", or \"Federally Administered Tribal Areas\" in Pakistan, a semi-autonomous tribal region that existed from 1947 until 2018 when it was merged with the neighbouring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as part of Pakistan's 25th amendment.\n\nMuch like its Western neighbour, Afghanistan, Waziristan is a particularly mountainous area. Hills gradually rise from East to West until they reach staggering peaks over 3,000 metres, or 9,000 feet, in the Southern half of the region. The Northern half is less mountainous and more open, but it has large hills and vast valleys, perfect for guerilla warfare. Having pretty hostile terrain is a double-edged sword in politics. The more rugged the landscape, the less likely you are to be successfully invaded. This is something that Afghanistan next door knows all too well. However, that protection comes at a cost and Waziristan's economic development is inhibited as a result. Open Data Pakistan tells us that maize, fruit and wheat are the major crops, with some sugar and rice to supplement. However, recent patterns of erratic weather, droughts and a lack of water infrastructure or the capital to build it have resulted in an agricultural downturn in recent years, according to the Diplomat. The Diplomat also tells us that 90% of Waziristan's population are associated with the agricultural sector. In other words, Waziristan as an area has always been one of little economic development. The people there live out a meagre existence and the agricultural downturn has only made the situation worse. They are very at the whims of the weather, like any substantial agricultural population.\n\nThe Pakistan Bureau of Statistics states that there is just short of 1.6 million people living in Waziristan. The majority of the tribes living there are Pashtun, meaning they speak the Pashto language, similar to their Afghani neighbours, although they do speak the specific Waziri dialect of Pashto. The most populous tribe is the Wazirs, for which the area is known. There are also the Mehsuds, Bhittanis, and Dawars, among other smaller tribes as well. Pakistan is already a highly Islamic country and Waziristan is no different. They adhere to Sunni Islam and specifically the Hanafi school of thought, as well as Pashtunwali the traditional tribal code, in order to facilitate society. That is to say, as Muslims go, many in Waziristan are on the conservative side and follow a pretty strict code in accordance with their tribal culture, bolstered by Islam.\n\nHowever, whilst many will know of Waziristan owed to the current war on terror and the coalition invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the people who populate Waziristan have a long and sordid history with colonists. Let's go back a few centuries, shall we?\n\n## Waziristan – The Colonial Years\n\nTo understand the history of Waziristan, you have to go back further than the history of Pakistan as a nation and delve into the history of India. India at the time of British colonisation in the 19th century included the territories now known as the countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Geopolitical Monitor covers some of the earliest history, stating that in 1806, Shah Abdul Aziz Muhaddith Dehlavi declared \"Dar-ul-Harb\" meaning \"abode of war\" on the British in India. He asserted in his fatwa that Muslims in then India should revolt against the British for freedom, equality and justice. He also asserted that Muslims should be the de facto leaders of India after the British were expelled. As a result, Shah Abdul Aziz has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the Indian independence movement. Even as far back as over 200 years ago, you can see Muslims in the subcontinent willing to fight to establish self-determination. This parallel from past to present shows that the surviving remnants of Islamic fundamentalism in Waziristan today strongly links back to hundreds of years of history. It goes some of the way in explaining how this fundamentalism has defined the area for at least two centuries.\n\nTwo wars were fought between Britain and Afghanistan in the 19th century, owed to the geopolitical game of chess that the British Empire was playing against Russia to see who gained de facto control of Afghanistan. This geopolitical posturing continued until 1893, according to the Library of Congress, when Afghanistan's Abdur Rahman Khan and Britain's Sir Henry Mortimer Durand agreed to delineate the borders between what was then Afghanistan and British India. With a few strokes of a pen, the Durand line was born. Much like other British lines on maps at the time, it cut directly through local villages and divided communities which would eventually lead to disaster years down the line. Waziristan just so happened to be just on the British India side, with the border's existence separating Pashtun families living across the line to this day.\n\nWhen the British entered Waziristan, they halved it into its Northern and Southern parts, and set up administrative headquarters in Wanna and Miranshah, where local command remains to this day even though the British are long gone. The British also introduced a land record system and revenue administration for the region. However, peace between Afghanistan and Britain simply couldn't last and skirmishes over the border began almost immediately, with Britain not completely restoring order until 1901, according to an American Department of Defense Paper written in 2005 by Matthew W. Williams. The British time in Waziristan was immensely difficult, with different mountain tribes revolting against the British on a consistent basis until 1919, when the leader of Afghanistan was assassinated. Afghani troops then crossed the border into Waziristan and thus the third Anglo-Afghan war began. Along with their Muslim and Pashtun brothers in Afghanistan, the tribes also rose up in rebellion. Williams states that the fighting was so brutal, that the British required the use of enormous firepower to reassert control over the plucky region by 1920, and eventually stationed a permanent garrison in Ramzak in 1923. This move would prove to be somewhat of a strategic blunder as the garrison was an easy target for attacks. In the 1930s there was more unrest and violence as Mirzali Khan, a member of the Wazir tribe, and also known under the title of the Faqir of Ipi declared jihad against the British. The tribesmen rallied around Khan and started a guerilla war against British colonial troops where many on both sides lost their lives. In the 1940s violence was still common but had reduced a lot in conjunction with Britain reducing the size of the garrison at Ramzak. Khan would harass the British until they left British India in 1947.\n\nIn 1947, Khan alongside his allies straddling the Durand Line declared the Bannu Resolution. The resolution demanded that the Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan composing all Pashtun majority territories of British India. Instead, the Pashtuns were being given the choice to join Pakistan, during its process of becoming an independent nation, or India, which wasn't majority Muslim. Khan and his allies were ultimately ignored and all of Waziristan as well as the other British Indian Pashtun territories, joined the newly formed nation of Pakistan, without an option to join Afghanistan or create Pashtunistan. Khan refused to recognise Pakistan and launched a campaign against the new state, but it petered out by 1954 when his commander in chief, Dil Khan Khattak surrendered to Pakistani authorities. Khan himself died of natural causes in 1960, never being captured or killed.\n\n## Waziristan – Pakistani Province\n\nPakistan was now a nation and the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), including modern Waziristan, was established for the tribes to live semi-autonomously but under Pakistani rule. The Pakistanis kept much of the British administrative infrastructure, including keeping both North and South Waziristan's provincial capitals where they were. However, not everybody was happy with the arrangement. As we mentioned, the Faqir of Ipi was one such actor who never approved of Pakistani rule. Despite Pakistan's foundation as a Muslim nation, Islamic fundamentalists living between Afghanistan and Waziristan have been trying to establish their own conservative brand of Islamic rule ever since. This displays the long-standing connection between Waziristan and Afghanistan, regardless of the Durand Line dividing them. So, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, hundreds of thousands of Afghanis crossed the border into Pakistan, according to The Diplomat. This in turn caused a crisis within Pakistan, who were struggling to establish themselves on the world stage after fighting two wars with big brother India. Pakistan's border on Afghanistan's side was very porous, allowing many people through owed to the hostile terrain, a theme that has continued into the modern day.\n\nThe Pakistani government extended extensive support to the Afghan mujahideen under President Ziaul Haq, which in turn allowed the United States to support Pakistan and the Mujahideen by proxy because they were resisting Soviet conquest in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis in conjunction with the US used extremism to attempt to destabilise Soviet Afghanistan in what was known as \"Operation Cyclone\" according to declassified documents made public decades after the fact. During this time, Waziristan acted as a safe haven for foreign Mujahideen from central Asia. Geopolitical Monitor states that it was common during the Soviet-Afghan war for foreign Islamic fundamentalists to use Waziristan as a launching pad for attacks into Afghanistan. This was likely due to a few factors: the establishment of the central Asian Mujahideen in the FATA during the Soviet-Afghan War, the proximity of Afghanistan to Waziristan and the region being semi-autonomous meant that Islamabad did not have full control over the area and therefore had plausible deniability. As a result, Waziristan became somewhat of a staging ground and a breeding ground for extremist Islamic ideas. The Tehrik-E Taliban Pakistan, otherwise known as the Pakistani arm of the Taliban, would go on to be founded in Waziristan in 2002.\n\nWe've gone through all that history at quite a pace; to show you the region of Waziristan is founded in fundamental Islamic rebellion and resistance against large powers. The people who live there make up a diverse group of warriors, who are used to the harsh terrain and mountainous regions, and are well versed in guerilla warfare. They are staunchly supportive of their Pashtun brothers in Afghanistan and are willing to take up arms to defend their faith.\n\nSo, when the USA invaded Afghanistan in 2001, what did they think was going to happen?\n\n## Waziristan – Pakistan's War on Terror\n\nOn September 11th 2001, two planes struck the world trade centre towers in New York City killing 3,000 people. The majority of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda were deemed to be the ultimate cause by US lawmakers, as the hijackers were members of the terrorist organisation. In the same year, the US invaded Afghanistan, beginning what has become known to many as the war on terror. In a cruel twist of fate, the Pakistani and US-backed Islamic fundamentalists that fought the Soviets, including mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Osama Bin Laden, had turned their jihad back on them. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.\n\nBy 2004, the US had pushed the fundamentalists into the mountains in the Eastern side of the country whilst hunting Al-Qaeda leaders. In particular, the fighting was taking place in the \"Tora Bora\" caves, also known as the Black Caves. This was during the final stages of the US's planned portion of the invasion. Of course, we all know that the US went on to stay in Afghanistan for over two decades. During this time, the US was also putting pressure on Pakistan to do something about the fundamentalists in their country, given the prevalence of extremists using Waziristan as a staging ground, or a place to escape to.\n\nUnder this pressure in 2004, the Pakistani army entered the Kyber District just South of Waziristan for the first time since Pakistan's independence in 1947, later pushing into both Southern and Northern Waziristan itself. However, this presented a difficult situation for Pakistan, as many people in the tribal areas are Pashtun, they are staunchly Islamic and many of them disagreed with the USA's invasion of Afghanistan. By extension, many more were unhappy with the Pakistani army entering their semi-autonomous territory in support of a US initiative. They saw it as a stab in the back of their Pashtun brothers. Other areas in Pakistan had seen protests also, accusing the United States of imperialism and Pakistan of being its lackey, according to Dawn, one of Pakistan's media publications. General DeLong, the second in command during the US invasion of Afghanistan stated in his memoir that \"To make matters worse, this tribal area was sympathetic to bin Laden.\" While DeLong initially said this in relation to the Tora Bora and attempted capture of Bin Laden in 2001, some Waziristanis would have inexplicably felt the same in 2004.\n\nThat does not mean that Muslims in Waziristan agreed on everything though, and large-scale fighting between the tribal populations and foreign militant groups would break out from time to time.\n\nThe Pakistani incursion into Waziristan erupted into conflict in the White Mountains of South Waziristan on the 16th of March 2004, according to Dawn. The White Mountains are closely associated with the Black Caves of Afghanistan. The town of Wanna sits in this area and is where the majority of the fighting took place with reports of at least 500 Al-Qaeda fighters holed up in the region at the time, according to Dawn. Dawn also reports that the foreign elements included Tajiks, Chechens and Uzbeks. We don't say this to point fingers and blame any one specific people for the fighting, but we want to show how much of a hotbed for foreign Islamic militancy that Waziristan had become in the wake of the war on terror. After the battle, man-made tunnels in Waziristan that led back to Afghanistan were found, showing how militants would use them to transit between both countries. This too would become a theme of stateless actors in this region.\n\nForeign militants were so comfortable holding Waziristan as a staging ground, it was even later discovered that Tahir Yoldeshev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was present in Waziristan at the time. This is according to a Dawn report from the 28th of March 2004 and states he was wounded in the attack by the Pakistani army, before escaping, likely in one of the many tunnels found. Despite conflicting reports of whether Yoldeshev survived the attack, he would later be confirmed to be deceased as a result of a US airstrike in South Waziristan in 2009. The IMU is a terrorist organisation that was known for the numerous attacks it has claimed throughout central Asia, before later finding home in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To make it clear whose side these guys are on, they later pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to Eurasia News. However, these were not the only terrorists in Waziristan, as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network among other less well-known fundamentalist groups would all find homes in Waziristan at times throughout the 21st century. The US was watching the fighting closely. The Project on Government Oversight, an American nonpartisan national security watchdog stated in its Centre for Defense Information in 2004 that after intense fighting, 55 Al-Qaeda fighters were killed alongside 49 of the Pakistani Army, plus purportedly but unconfirmed large numbers of Al-Qaeda members captured. This kicked off the unofficial conflict known as Pakistan's War on Terror.\n\nThe fighting was intense across the whole Western side of Pakistan. Over the coming years, three districts in the federal tribal areas were captured by militants and were under their de facto control, that being the Bajaur district, South Waziristan and North Waziristan according to The Foundation for Defense of Democracies' long war journal. In 2005, Pakistan was able to arrest several high-profile Al-Qaeda members including Abu Faraj Al-Libbi, who was a top general for Al-Qaeda at the time according to Amnesty International. However, the capture of high-profile militants did little to quell the violence. Several ceasefire agreements were made in 2006 and 2007 between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders known as the Waziristan Accords. However, it was a hollow peace and the violence continued often motivated by US and Pakistani military involvement in the area. Throughout this time, attacks, raids and suicide bombings were still relatively frequent.\n\nIn Waziristan itself, there was a collapse into infighting and according to the BBC, by April of 2007, the local tribal population had successfully pushed the foreign militants, mostly Uzbeks, out of the valleys surrounding Wanna. This resulted in the defeat of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the tribes regaining some control over the landscape. However, the IMU were not the only ones operating in Waziristan at the time. As we've mentioned Al-Qaeda were already present in the area and 2007 was when the Pakistani arm of the Taliban (TTP) began to rise in prominence, already by this time in control of many parts of Waziristan. For Waziristan this would not be the end of militants in their lands, or the bloodshed that the region had become almost synonymous with. Fighting was bound to erupt again. Waziristan was a powder keg, and all it needed was a spark.\n\nThat spark came in July of 2007. In the city of Islamabad over 300 kilometres away from Waziristan, what started out as clashes between militant student supporters and police at the Lal Masjid Mosque, led to it being sieged by the police and armed forces, according to Al-Jazeera. Despite the Muslim League's attempts to quell the violence, it fell on deaf ears, with the siege lasting for eight days, only being lifted to assault the mosque. The BBC reports that over 100 people were confirmed killed in the assault but also reported other groups have stated the death toll was much higher. Pakistan's Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah told reporters that: \"It is believed that some women and children holed up in the mosque lost their lives in the military operation against militants.\" Although no official numbers for the amount of innocent people killed were released.\n\nThe siege of the Red Mosque as it is known, sent the shallow truce of militants in Waziristan into a tailspin. Even during the eight-day siege itself, there were several attacks in Waziristan as retaliation, according to NBC news. That's not all though, as this was something of a watershed moment for Pakistan. It represented the catalyst that would cause widespread violence in North-West Pakistan to once again break out. This move that killed innocent Muslims among militants in a mosque was simply the straw that broke the camel's back and this formally put an end to any peace agreements between Pakistan and its fundamentalists. The Waziristan Accords were dead. It was open season. Jihad, not for the first time in Pakistan, would be declared, according to the New York Times.\n\nUnder pressure, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf moved a large swathe of the Pakistani army into Waziristan, totally abandoning all principles of their semi-autonomous governance in the name of law and order. Fierce clashes with militants began. There were so many attacks by militants in Waziristan it would be impossible to cover them all in one video. One of the most famous attacks covered by the Long War Journal was an incident where the TTP successfully captured over 100 security forces personnel after intercepting a military convoy in August of 2007, shocking the nation. According to Al-Jazeera, 300 people had been killed by attacks, mostly suicide bombings by October. Between the tribal militants and their tensions with the foreign militants, the Pakistani security forces entering the region and with the occasional airstrike from the USA, it was bedlam. However, the militants were able to take advantage of the chaos. The BBC reported in January of 2008 that militants had overrun a Pakistani fort, one of many which scattered the landscape in Waziristan. Nevertheless, this goes to show how much of a fighting force the militants in Waziristan were at this time. They were strong, they had numbers, weapons, connections, escape routes, logistics and most importantly of all for them, faith. The TTP had almost total control of both North and South Waziristan by 2008, according to an article written by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point (CTC). The Pakistani army, now under new management since President Musharraf's resignation in 2008, began the painstaking process of clearing, holding and building on the bordering areas of Waziristan to regain control.\n\n## Retaking Waziristan\n\nThe army used this staging time as preparation for a major military offensive into South Waziristan, known as Rah-e-Nijat which arrived in October of 2009, according to the CTC. This was the first time since the conflict began that the Pakistani army truly had the numbers advantage over the smaller pockets of militants as they sent 28,000 troops into South Waziristan from 3 directions, according to Reuters. The Pakistani army was able to take back several towns and installations within South Waziristan, including the fort they had lost the year prior, according to the Long War Journal. However, with an estimated 10,000 militants in Waziristan at the time, as reported by the CTC, there were not many captured or killed. The CTC also reported the potential reasons for this, stating \"Overall, there is little evidence that heavy fighting occurred during the entire operation because it appears that most militants fled in the face of the government advance.\" This reflects the guerilla war tactics that the various militants in Pakistan used at the time. It is not out of the question that the militants, especially high-profile terrorists, would use the tunnel network in Waziristan to escape back into Afghanistan, where they could then stage counterattacks from. This is the true difficulty of fighting a stateless actor on the border of two states, there is always a place to run. Despite this however, the Jamestown Foundation states that the Pakistani army had declared victory in South Waziristan by December of 2009.\n\nThe fighting continued in other areas across Western Pakistan. But South Waziristan went quiet for a considerable period, given the army's occupation there. In 2010, Dawn reports that plans were drawn up for a full-fledged military invasion of North Waziristan, the last militant holdout, however this wouldn't come to fruition until 4 years later in 2014. The Pakistani brass had to be patient, they had already taken back South Waziristan and would go on to hold it. Now it was time for the North. It couldn't come at a worse time for the Pakistani Taliban, the biggest militant fighting force in Waziristan at the time. In 2014, the TTP collapsed into infighting, with one faction splitting completely away from the TTP, claiming that the leader's tactics were \"un-islamic\" according to the BBC. Now not only were the TTP weaker and less organised, but the Pakistani army were standing on their doorstep waiting for an imminent invasion order. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the seven years since the TTP's rise to prominence, according to the BBC. For this reason, the Pakistani army were not going to hold back, as they had been emboldened and battle hardened, fighting against guerilla militants on and off since at least 2004.\n\nOn the 8th of June, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacked Jinnah Airport in Karachi with RPGs and gunfire resulting in the deaths of 34 people, according to Reuters. This was not the time to poke the hornet's nest and the Pakistani army responded with a great show of force. As a result of the attack on Jinnah airport, Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched a week later on the 15th of July. Similar to Operation Rah-e-Nijat, around 30,000 soldiers pushed into North Waziristan to flush out the remaining militants staging attacks and training soldiers there, so reports the Huffington Post.\n\nThe operation was, militarily speaking, a roaring success according to the Jamestown Foundation. Despite the deaths of 347 Pakistani soldiers, that proved to be the cost for killing 2,763 militants, capturing over 18,000 weapons and destroying over 800 hideouts in return, according to The Tribune. The South Asia Terrorism Portal states in its 2018 assessment that the number of total fatalities within FATA declined from 2,863 in 2014 to just 1,862 in 2015. This is equivalent to a year-on-year casualty reduction of over 36%. However, there were other costs for this success. In terms of finances, Zarb-e-Abz cost over 1.3 billion dollars according to Geo News, even for a successful operation that is expensive. If you wanted to extrapolate it out, Pakistan spent 470,000 dollars per militant killed if those numbers are accurate. There is also something to be said about the half a million people who were displaced by the conflict, according to Voices of America (VoA). Many people who lived in Waziristan had no home to return to owed to damage that was caused by the fighting. Many who have tried to return home, according to VoA had no running water or electricity for at least six years after the operation.\n\nA local man, Talibdeen, who spoke to VoA painted a stark picture of what many had returned home to. He said \"My children are crying because they want their home. We don't have access to clean water or facilities such as schools, hospitals and medical dispensaries. When we were returning, they gave us two tents.\" \"We used our own cloth and wood poles to create a wall around the area where our house once stood, but when the weather is bad, the cloth tears apart, and our women struggle to stitch it together again.\" Talibdeen's words remind us that there are always more costs to war than just the financials and the number of dead. VoA reports that there were 15,222 internally displaced families scheduled to return to their villages in North Waziristan as of 2020.\n\nAnd then there's the question over whether the operation truly worked. Yes, a reduction in violence in total terms is good. That is an unequivocal success of Zarb-e-Abz, but one could argue that all this operation did was kick the can down the road, it treated the symptom, not the cause. It hadn't eradicated extremism in Waziristan, or in Pakistan more widely. The BBC reported in 2017 that militant Islamic fundamentalist attacks still continued, just less frequently. Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan was still a major issue. Despite Operation Zarb-e-Abz driving out the militants of their strongholds in North Waziristan, it isn't out of the question that many high-profile militants escaped back into Afghanistan and simply waited for the heat to die down before re-entering Pakistan somewhere else, according to the Jamestown Foundation. So, without fixing the root cause, they were unable to change the root effect. This is how the conflict was in Waziristan and across Pakistan up until recently, a low-intensity conflict where attacks continued and the Pakistani government continually failed to stamp extremism out of the region once and for all. Pakistan passed their 25th amendment in May of 2018, officially federating FATA into the Kyber Pakhtunkhwa region. This officially abolished semi-autonomy in the region and bestowed its inhabitants with the rights guaranteed by Pakistani citizenship. This was likely done to give the Pakistani government more say and influence over the region and allowed them to keep a closer eye on it and the border with Afghanistan.\n\nSpeaking of the border, a border fence between Pakistan and Afghanistan was built and mostly completed by 2021 according to Al-Jazeera. In theory this border fence would stop those who wished to cross the border from one nation to another. Crucially it would stop cross-border \"attack and retreat\" tactics by guerilla militants. Those who staged attacks successfully would struggle to escape whilst being hunted by Pakistani forces. In the simplest sense of walking across the land, that is true. However, as we well know by now, militants in this region don't tend to travel overground, but underground. It is highly unlikely that Pakistan is able to do anything about the extensive network of caves and tunnel systems that link it to Afghanistan, which means the border is by default, semi open. On September the 5th 2020, a terrorist on a bomb-clad motorcycle targeted a Pakistani army convoy on Mastung Road in Quetta, killing four personnel and injuring 20 others. The Pakistani Taliban have since claimed responsibility for this incident, showing the fence can only have so much of an effect when there are already extremists in your borders. However, some effect is not no effect. According to Al-Jazeera, the number of cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan fell from 82 in 2019 to just 11 in 2020, although the pandemic could have had some effect on this. The fence has its drawbacks, it separates families from their relatives who live on the other side of the border. It also calls into question the border itself, which Afghanistan disputes owed to the Pashtun peoples in North West Pakistan and could potentially be the reasoning behind a direct state conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the future. Finally, the fence acts as a target for militants on the Afghan side of the border, with the BBC reporting a mortar shelling of a Pakistani border town in 2022 which killed 17 people.\n\nIn 2021, the fate of Waziristan once again changed direction for the worse, as the US pulled out of Afghanistan two decades after first invading. Within months the Taliban had taken back control of the country. This posed a new challenge for Waziristan, as despite the fence and the operation to drive the fundamentalist militants out of Pakistan, the Taliban no longer needed a staging ground in Pakistan, as all of Afghanistan was now their staging ground. Not only this but the Taliban in Afghanistan were armed with more resources and equipment than ever, considering the seven billion dollars' worth left behind by the US, according to CNN. NBC News reported in 2023 that US arms were already finding their way into other conflicts, including Pakistan's ongoing 3-way Kashmir conflict alongside India and China. Therefore Pakistan now has the Taliban, more well-equipped than ever on its porous border, with no real way of totally stemming the infiltration of terrorists, guns and radical ideals into their country. The Taliban's triumph in Afghanistan has re-galvanised the Pakistani Taliban who now have a state-sized ally to support their operations, as well as a safe haven to stage attacks from. It is no surprise then that Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar told Radio Free Europe that the number of terrorist incidents in Pakistan had increased by 60 percent in November of 2023. There is simply only so much a fence can do.\n\n## Waziristan Today\n\nWaziristan today, in a way, is how it always has been. An unstable region balancing on a knife-edge with many internal and external actors trying to influence it as it rebuilds itself. No matter who is \"in charge\" of the region, it appears to remain a place where fundamentalist Islamic ideologies are bred and trained. You only need to see the 2017 pictures posted by the BBC of defunct bomb factories in North Waziristan to understand the entrenchment of these radical ideas in the region. Northern Waziristan specifically remains a target for attacks, such as when a girl's private school was blown up there on the 10th of May 2024 with zero causalities. The peril of the people who live near the Durand Line has spanned centuries. Generations of people have been blown up, shot, injured, radicalised, invaded, colonised and displaced. It makes you wonder whether it would have been better for the Pashtun people to be given what they wanted back in 1947, a national homeland. The drawing and subsequent following of the Durand Line has led to misery, war and jihad so long-spanning that it is still affecting global geopolitics today. Could all of that bloodshed have been avoided? Could more still be avoided? The cynical answer is it's unlikely to change now. Despite Afghanistan's dispute over the border, the Durand Line is an internationally recognised border by most of the world. As a result, it is unlikely to change any time soon, which means Taliban-run Afghanistan will sustain an influence over the North-West of the country, and so attacks from the TTP will continue, bolstered by support from abroad. One thing is for sure though, no matter what happens to the land of Waziristan, the people who live there are warriors and survivors, they will be ready.\n\n## Key Takeaways\n\n- Waziristan is a mountainous region in Pakistan and Afghanistan, historically a hotbed for extremist Islamic ideologies.\n- The Durand Line, drawn in the 19th century, has divided Pashtun communities and fueled long-standing conflicts.\n- Waziristan's rugged terrain has made it difficult to invade but has also hindered economic development.\n- The region has been a staging ground for various militant groups, including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.\n- Pakistan's military operations in Waziristan have had mixed results, reducing violence but not eradicating extremism.\n\n## Frequently Asked Questions\n\n### Where is Waziristan located?\n\nWaziristan is located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the North West of Pakistan. It is roughly 11,585 square kilometres in size and is divided into North and South Waziristan.\n\n### What is the terrain like in Waziristan?\n\nWaziristan is a mountainous area with hills gradually rising from East to West until they reach staggering peaks over 3,000 metres in the Southern half of the region. The Northern half is less mountainous but has large hills and vast valleys.\n\n### What are the major crops grown in Waziristan?\n\nThe major crops grown in Waziristan are maize, fruit, and wheat, with some sugar and rice to supplement. However, recent patterns of erratic weather, droughts, and a lack of water infrastructure have resulted in an agricultural downturn.\n\n### What is the population of Waziristan?\n\nAccording to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, there is just short of 1.6 million people living in Waziristan.\n\n### What are the major tribes in Waziristan?\n\nThe major tribes in Waziristan are the Wazirs, Mehsuds, Bhittanis, and Dawars, among other smaller tribes. The majority of the tribes are Pashtun, meaning they speak the Pashto language.\n\n### What is the religious and cultural background of Waziristan?\n\nWaziristan is predominantly Sunni Islamic, adhering to the Hanafi school of thought. The people also follow Pashtunwali, the traditional tribal code, which facilitates their society. They are known for being conservative and following a strict code in accordance with their tribal culture and Islam.\n\n### What is the historical significance of the Durand Line?\n\nThe Durand Line was established in 1893 between Afghanistan's Abdur Rahman Khan and Britain's Sir Henry Mortimer Durand. It delineated the borders between Afghanistan and British India, cutting through local villages and dividing communities, which would eventually lead to disaster.\n\n### What was the Bannu Resolution?\n\nThe Bannu Resolution was declared in 1947 by Mirzali Khan and his allies straddling the Durand Line. It demanded that the Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan composing all Pashtun majority territories of British India. However, the Pashtuns were instead given the choice to join Pakistan or India, and the resolution was ultimately ignored.\n\n### What role did Waziristan play during the Soviet-Afghan War?\n\nDuring the Soviet-Afghan War, Waziristan acted as a safe haven for foreign Mujahideen from Central Asia. It was a staging ground and breeding ground for extremist Islamic ideas, with the Pakistani government and the US supporting the Mujahideen by proxy.\n\n### What was Operation Zarb-e-Azb?\n\nOperation Zarb-e-Azb was launched by the Pakistani army in 2014 to flush out militants from North Waziristan. It was a major military offensive that resulted in the deaths of 2,763 militants and the capture of over 18,000 weapons, but it also displaced half a million people and cost over 1.3 billion dollars.\n\n## Sources\n\n- [Original Places video: Waziristan: The Terrorist Training Ground](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Io0tFHUCik)\n- [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Aerial_landscape_view_%282017%29.jpg) by Saga1111 / openverse, by-sa.\n\n## Related Coverage" url: https://places.site/article/waziristan-terrorist-training-ground.md canonical: https://places.site/article/waziristan-terrorist-training-ground datePublished: 2026-07-01 dateModified: 2026-07-01 author: - name: Simon Whistler url: https://places.site/author/simon-whistler publisher: Places image: "https://media.places.site/cdn-cgi/image/width=1600,height=900,fit=cover,quality=80,format=auto/articles/0Io0tFHUCik/hero.jpg" type: NewsArticle contentHash: 0c56d18c8e12d5324ef8d62bc9314ba44f774b06350329aac54ee2b207c5f8ef tokens: 9690 summaryUrl: https://places.site/article/waziristan-terrorist-training-ground.md.summary.md --- There is a land in Asia quite unlike any other. For centuries, a warrior people have attempted to defend it at all costs. It has been one of the most dangerous places in the world, and at times was host to some of the most dangerous people in the world. This is a place where terrorists go to school, where an ongoing jihad over a decade long is just the latest in a series of jihads that are over a decade long. We are talking about Waziristan. Some of you might never have heard of it, as it is just a small section of a formerly semi-autonomous region on the Afghan border. There are so many questions a place like Waziristan stirs up. Who are the people defending this land? Why do extremists flock to it like a moth to a flame? And how has a line on a map drawn in the 19th century led to thousands of deaths, war and suffering? You're about to find out. This is everything you need to know about Waziristan. ## Where in the World Is Waziristan? Waziristan as an area is around 11,585 square kilometres, or 4,500 square miles, in size. It sits on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the North West of Pakistan. The border is known as "the Durand Line" from back when the United Kingdom colonised India in the 19th century. Waziristan's territory roughly lies between the Gomal River in the South and the Kurram River in the North. However, the entirety of Waziristan itself is also split in half administratively, creating what is known as South and North Waziristan. That's not all though, Waziristan was originally a part of the "FATA", or "Federally Administered Tribal Areas" in Pakistan, a semi-autonomous tribal region that existed from 1947 until 2018 when it was merged with the neighbouring province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa as part of Pakistan's 25th amendment. Much like its Western neighbour, Afghanistan, Waziristan is a particularly mountainous area. Hills gradually rise from East to West until they reach staggering peaks over 3,000 metres, or 9,000 feet, in the Southern half of the region. The Northern half is less mountainous and more open, but it has large hills and vast valleys, perfect for guerilla warfare. Having pretty hostile terrain is a double-edged sword in politics. The more rugged the landscape, the less likely you are to be successfully invaded. This is something that Afghanistan next door knows all too well. However, that protection comes at a cost and Waziristan's economic development is inhibited as a result. Open Data Pakistan tells us that maize, fruit and wheat are the major crops, with some sugar and rice to supplement. However, recent patterns of erratic weather, droughts and a lack of water infrastructure or the capital to build it have resulted in an agricultural downturn in recent years, according to the Diplomat. The Diplomat also tells us that 90% of Waziristan's population are associated with the agricultural sector. In other words, Waziristan as an area has always been one of little economic development. The people there live out a meagre existence and the agricultural downturn has only made the situation worse. They are very at the whims of the weather, like any substantial agricultural population. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics states that there is just short of 1.6 million people living in Waziristan. The majority of the tribes living there are Pashtun, meaning they speak the Pashto language, similar to their Afghani neighbours, although they do speak the specific Waziri dialect of Pashto. The most populous tribe is the Wazirs, for which the area is known. There are also the Mehsuds, Bhittanis, and Dawars, among other smaller tribes as well. Pakistan is already a highly Islamic country and Waziristan is no different. They adhere to Sunni Islam and specifically the Hanafi school of thought, as well as Pashtunwali the traditional tribal code, in order to facilitate society. That is to say, as Muslims go, many in Waziristan are on the conservative side and follow a pretty strict code in accordance with their tribal culture, bolstered by Islam. However, whilst many will know of Waziristan owed to the current war on terror and the coalition invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the people who populate Waziristan have a long and sordid history with colonists. Let's go back a few centuries, shall we? ## Waziristan – The Colonial Years To understand the history of Waziristan, you have to go back further than the history of Pakistan as a nation and delve into the history of India. India at the time of British colonisation in the 19th century included the territories now known as the countries of Bangladesh and Pakistan. Geopolitical Monitor covers some of the earliest history, stating that in 1806, Shah Abdul Aziz Muhaddith Dehlavi declared "Dar-ul-Harb" meaning "abode of war" on the British in India. He asserted in his fatwa that Muslims in then India should revolt against the British for freedom, equality and justice. He also asserted that Muslims should be the de facto leaders of India after the British were expelled. As a result, Shah Abdul Aziz has been seen as one of the earliest proponents of the Indian independence movement. Even as far back as over 200 years ago, you can see Muslims in the subcontinent willing to fight to establish self-determination. This parallel from past to present shows that the surviving remnants of Islamic fundamentalism in Waziristan today strongly links back to hundreds of years of history. It goes some of the way in explaining how this fundamentalism has defined the area for at least two centuries. Two wars were fought between Britain and Afghanistan in the 19th century, owed to the geopolitical game of chess that the British Empire was playing against Russia to see who gained de facto control of Afghanistan. This geopolitical posturing continued until 1893, according to the Library of Congress, when Afghanistan's Abdur Rahman Khan and Britain's Sir Henry Mortimer Durand agreed to delineate the borders between what was then Afghanistan and British India. With a few strokes of a pen, the Durand line was born. Much like other British lines on maps at the time, it cut directly through local villages and divided communities which would eventually lead to disaster years down the line. Waziristan just so happened to be just on the British India side, with the border's existence separating Pashtun families living across the line to this day. When the British entered Waziristan, they halved it into its Northern and Southern parts, and set up administrative headquarters in Wanna and Miranshah, where local command remains to this day even though the British are long gone. The British also introduced a land record system and revenue administration for the region. However, peace between Afghanistan and Britain simply couldn't last and skirmishes over the border began almost immediately, with Britain not completely restoring order until 1901, according to an American Department of Defense Paper written in 2005 by Matthew W. Williams. The British time in Waziristan was immensely difficult, with different mountain tribes revolting against the British on a consistent basis until 1919, when the leader of Afghanistan was assassinated. Afghani troops then crossed the border into Waziristan and thus the third Anglo-Afghan war began. Along with their Muslim and Pashtun brothers in Afghanistan, the tribes also rose up in rebellion. Williams states that the fighting was so brutal, that the British required the use of enormous firepower to reassert control over the plucky region by 1920, and eventually stationed a permanent garrison in Ramzak in 1923. This move would prove to be somewhat of a strategic blunder as the garrison was an easy target for attacks. In the 1930s there was more unrest and violence as Mirzali Khan, a member of the Wazir tribe, and also known under the title of the Faqir of Ipi declared jihad against the British. The tribesmen rallied around Khan and started a guerilla war against British colonial troops where many on both sides lost their lives. In the 1940s violence was still common but had reduced a lot in conjunction with Britain reducing the size of the garrison at Ramzak. Khan would harass the British until they left British India in 1947. In 1947, Khan alongside his allies straddling the Durand Line declared the Bannu Resolution. The resolution demanded that the Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan composing all Pashtun majority territories of British India. Instead, the Pashtuns were being given the choice to join Pakistan, during its process of becoming an independent nation, or India, which wasn't majority Muslim. Khan and his allies were ultimately ignored and all of Waziristan as well as the other British Indian Pashtun territories, joined the newly formed nation of Pakistan, without an option to join Afghanistan or create Pashtunistan. Khan refused to recognise Pakistan and launched a campaign against the new state, but it petered out by 1954 when his commander in chief, Dil Khan Khattak surrendered to Pakistani authorities. Khan himself died of natural causes in 1960, never being captured or killed. ## Waziristan – Pakistani Province Pakistan was now a nation and the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), including modern Waziristan, was established for the tribes to live semi-autonomously but under Pakistani rule. The Pakistanis kept much of the British administrative infrastructure, including keeping both North and South Waziristan's provincial capitals where they were. However, not everybody was happy with the arrangement. As we mentioned, the Faqir of Ipi was one such actor who never approved of Pakistani rule. Despite Pakistan's foundation as a Muslim nation, Islamic fundamentalists living between Afghanistan and Waziristan have been trying to establish their own conservative brand of Islamic rule ever since. This displays the long-standing connection between Waziristan and Afghanistan, regardless of the Durand Line dividing them. So, when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, hundreds of thousands of Afghanis crossed the border into Pakistan, according to The Diplomat. This in turn caused a crisis within Pakistan, who were struggling to establish themselves on the world stage after fighting two wars with big brother India. Pakistan's border on Afghanistan's side was very porous, allowing many people through owed to the hostile terrain, a theme that has continued into the modern day. The Pakistani government extended extensive support to the Afghan mujahideen under President Ziaul Haq, which in turn allowed the United States to support Pakistan and the Mujahideen by proxy because they were resisting Soviet conquest in Afghanistan. The Pakistanis in conjunction with the US used extremism to attempt to destabilise Soviet Afghanistan in what was known as "Operation Cyclone" according to declassified documents made public decades after the fact. During this time, Waziristan acted as a safe haven for foreign Mujahideen from central Asia. Geopolitical Monitor states that it was common during the Soviet-Afghan war for foreign Islamic fundamentalists to use Waziristan as a launching pad for attacks into Afghanistan. This was likely due to a few factors: the establishment of the central Asian Mujahideen in the FATA during the Soviet-Afghan War, the proximity of Afghanistan to Waziristan and the region being semi-autonomous meant that Islamabad did not have full control over the area and therefore had plausible deniability. As a result, Waziristan became somewhat of a staging ground and a breeding ground for extremist Islamic ideas. The Tehrik-E Taliban Pakistan, otherwise known as the Pakistani arm of the Taliban, would go on to be founded in Waziristan in 2002. We've gone through all that history at quite a pace; to show you the region of Waziristan is founded in fundamental Islamic rebellion and resistance against large powers. The people who live there make up a diverse group of warriors, who are used to the harsh terrain and mountainous regions, and are well versed in guerilla warfare. They are staunchly supportive of their Pashtun brothers in Afghanistan and are willing to take up arms to defend their faith. So, when the USA invaded Afghanistan in 2001, what did they think was going to happen? ## Waziristan – Pakistan's War on Terror On September 11th 2001, two planes struck the world trade centre towers in New York City killing 3,000 people. The majority of the hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but Afghanistan and Al-Qaeda were deemed to be the ultimate cause by US lawmakers, as the hijackers were members of the terrorist organisation. In the same year, the US invaded Afghanistan, beginning what has become known to many as the war on terror. In a cruel twist of fate, the Pakistani and US-backed Islamic fundamentalists that fought the Soviets, including mastermind of the 9/11 attacks Osama Bin Laden, had turned their jihad back on them. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes. By 2004, the US had pushed the fundamentalists into the mountains in the Eastern side of the country whilst hunting Al-Qaeda leaders. In particular, the fighting was taking place in the "Tora Bora" caves, also known as the Black Caves. This was during the final stages of the US's planned portion of the invasion. Of course, we all know that the US went on to stay in Afghanistan for over two decades. During this time, the US was also putting pressure on Pakistan to do something about the fundamentalists in their country, given the prevalence of extremists using Waziristan as a staging ground, or a place to escape to. Under this pressure in 2004, the Pakistani army entered the Kyber District just South of Waziristan for the first time since Pakistan's independence in 1947, later pushing into both Southern and Northern Waziristan itself. However, this presented a difficult situation for Pakistan, as many people in the tribal areas are Pashtun, they are staunchly Islamic and many of them disagreed with the USA's invasion of Afghanistan. By extension, many more were unhappy with the Pakistani army entering their semi-autonomous territory in support of a US initiative. They saw it as a stab in the back of their Pashtun brothers. Other areas in Pakistan had seen protests also, accusing the United States of imperialism and Pakistan of being its lackey, according to Dawn, one of Pakistan's media publications. General DeLong, the second in command during the US invasion of Afghanistan stated in his memoir that "To make matters worse, this tribal area was sympathetic to bin Laden." While DeLong initially said this in relation to the Tora Bora and attempted capture of Bin Laden in 2001, some Waziristanis would have inexplicably felt the same in 2004. That does not mean that Muslims in Waziristan agreed on everything though, and large-scale fighting between the tribal populations and foreign militant groups would break out from time to time. The Pakistani incursion into Waziristan erupted into conflict in the White Mountains of South Waziristan on the 16th of March 2004, according to Dawn. The White Mountains are closely associated with the Black Caves of Afghanistan. The town of Wanna sits in this area and is where the majority of the fighting took place with reports of at least 500 Al-Qaeda fighters holed up in the region at the time, according to Dawn. Dawn also reports that the foreign elements included Tajiks, Chechens and Uzbeks. We don't say this to point fingers and blame any one specific people for the fighting, but we want to show how much of a hotbed for foreign Islamic militancy that Waziristan had become in the wake of the war on terror. After the battle, man-made tunnels in Waziristan that led back to Afghanistan were found, showing how militants would use them to transit between both countries. This too would become a theme of stateless actors in this region. Foreign militants were so comfortable holding Waziristan as a staging ground, it was even later discovered that Tahir Yoldeshev, the leader of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), was present in Waziristan at the time. This is according to a Dawn report from the 28th of March 2004 and states he was wounded in the attack by the Pakistani army, before escaping, likely in one of the many tunnels found. Despite conflicting reports of whether Yoldeshev survived the attack, he would later be confirmed to be deceased as a result of a US airstrike in South Waziristan in 2009. The IMU is a terrorist organisation that was known for the numerous attacks it has claimed throughout central Asia, before later finding home in Afghanistan and Pakistan. To make it clear whose side these guys are on, they later pledged allegiance to ISIS, according to Eurasia News. However, these were not the only terrorists in Waziristan, as the Taliban, Al-Qaeda and the Haqqani Network among other less well-known fundamentalist groups would all find homes in Waziristan at times throughout the 21st century. The US was watching the fighting closely. The Project on Government Oversight, an American nonpartisan national security watchdog stated in its Centre for Defense Information in 2004 that after intense fighting, 55 Al-Qaeda fighters were killed alongside 49 of the Pakistani Army, plus purportedly but unconfirmed large numbers of Al-Qaeda members captured. This kicked off the unofficial conflict known as Pakistan's War on Terror. The fighting was intense across the whole Western side of Pakistan. Over the coming years, three districts in the federal tribal areas were captured by militants and were under their de facto control, that being the Bajaur district, South Waziristan and North Waziristan according to The Foundation for Defense of Democracies' long war journal. In 2005, Pakistan was able to arrest several high-profile Al-Qaeda members including Abu Faraj Al-Libbi, who was a top general for Al-Qaeda at the time according to Amnesty International. However, the capture of high-profile militants did little to quell the violence. Several ceasefire agreements were made in 2006 and 2007 between the Pakistani government and tribal leaders known as the Waziristan Accords. However, it was a hollow peace and the violence continued often motivated by US and Pakistani military involvement in the area. Throughout this time, attacks, raids and suicide bombings were still relatively frequent. In Waziristan itself, there was a collapse into infighting and according to the BBC, by April of 2007, the local tribal population had successfully pushed the foreign militants, mostly Uzbeks, out of the valleys surrounding Wanna. This resulted in the defeat of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and the tribes regaining some control over the landscape. However, the IMU were not the only ones operating in Waziristan at the time. As we've mentioned Al-Qaeda were already present in the area and 2007 was when the Pakistani arm of the Taliban (TTP) began to rise in prominence, already by this time in control of many parts of Waziristan. For Waziristan this would not be the end of militants in their lands, or the bloodshed that the region had become almost synonymous with. Fighting was bound to erupt again. Waziristan was a powder keg, and all it needed was a spark. That spark came in July of 2007. In the city of Islamabad over 300 kilometres away from Waziristan, what started out as clashes between militant student supporters and police at the Lal Masjid Mosque, led to it being sieged by the police and armed forces, according to Al-Jazeera. Despite the Muslim League's attempts to quell the violence, it fell on deaf ears, with the siege lasting for eight days, only being lifted to assault the mosque. The BBC reports that over 100 people were confirmed killed in the assault but also reported other groups have stated the death toll was much higher. Pakistan's Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah told reporters that: "It is believed that some women and children holed up in the mosque lost their lives in the military operation against militants." Although no official numbers for the amount of innocent people killed were released. The siege of the Red Mosque as it is known, sent the shallow truce of militants in Waziristan into a tailspin. Even during the eight-day siege itself, there were several attacks in Waziristan as retaliation, according to NBC news. That's not all though, as this was something of a watershed moment for Pakistan. It represented the catalyst that would cause widespread violence in North-West Pakistan to once again break out. This move that killed innocent Muslims among militants in a mosque was simply the straw that broke the camel's back and this formally put an end to any peace agreements between Pakistan and its fundamentalists. The Waziristan Accords were dead. It was open season. Jihad, not for the first time in Pakistan, would be declared, according to the New York Times. Under pressure, Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf moved a large swathe of the Pakistani army into Waziristan, totally abandoning all principles of their semi-autonomous governance in the name of law and order. Fierce clashes with militants began. There were so many attacks by militants in Waziristan it would be impossible to cover them all in one video. One of the most famous attacks covered by the Long War Journal was an incident where the TTP successfully captured over 100 security forces personnel after intercepting a military convoy in August of 2007, shocking the nation. According to Al-Jazeera, 300 people had been killed by attacks, mostly suicide bombings by October. Between the tribal militants and their tensions with the foreign militants, the Pakistani security forces entering the region and with the occasional airstrike from the USA, it was bedlam. However, the militants were able to take advantage of the chaos. The BBC reported in January of 2008 that militants had overrun a Pakistani fort, one of many which scattered the landscape in Waziristan. Nevertheless, this goes to show how much of a fighting force the militants in Waziristan were at this time. They were strong, they had numbers, weapons, connections, escape routes, logistics and most importantly of all for them, faith. The TTP had almost total control of both North and South Waziristan by 2008, according to an article written by the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point (CTC). The Pakistani army, now under new management since President Musharraf's resignation in 2008, began the painstaking process of clearing, holding and building on the bordering areas of Waziristan to regain control. ## Retaking Waziristan The army used this staging time as preparation for a major military offensive into South Waziristan, known as Rah-e-Nijat which arrived in October of 2009, according to the CTC. This was the first time since the conflict began that the Pakistani army truly had the numbers advantage over the smaller pockets of militants as they sent 28,000 troops into South Waziristan from 3 directions, according to Reuters. The Pakistani army was able to take back several towns and installations within South Waziristan, including the fort they had lost the year prior, according to the Long War Journal. However, with an estimated 10,000 militants in Waziristan at the time, as reported by the CTC, there were not many captured or killed. The CTC also reported the potential reasons for this, stating "Overall, there is little evidence that heavy fighting occurred during the entire operation because it appears that most militants fled in the face of the government advance." This reflects the guerilla war tactics that the various militants in Pakistan used at the time. It is not out of the question that the militants, especially high-profile terrorists, would use the tunnel network in Waziristan to escape back into Afghanistan, where they could then stage counterattacks from. This is the true difficulty of fighting a stateless actor on the border of two states, there is always a place to run. Despite this however, the Jamestown Foundation states that the Pakistani army had declared victory in South Waziristan by December of 2009. The fighting continued in other areas across Western Pakistan. But South Waziristan went quiet for a considerable period, given the army's occupation there. In 2010, Dawn reports that plans were drawn up for a full-fledged military invasion of North Waziristan, the last militant holdout, however this wouldn't come to fruition until 4 years later in 2014. The Pakistani brass had to be patient, they had already taken back South Waziristan and would go on to hold it. Now it was time for the North. It couldn't come at a worse time for the Pakistani Taliban, the biggest militant fighting force in Waziristan at the time. In 2014, the TTP collapsed into infighting, with one faction splitting completely away from the TTP, claiming that the leader's tactics were "un-islamic" according to the BBC. Now not only were the TTP weaker and less organised, but the Pakistani army were standing on their doorstep waiting for an imminent invasion order. Tens of thousands of people were killed in the seven years since the TTP's rise to prominence, according to the BBC. For this reason, the Pakistani army were not going to hold back, as they had been emboldened and battle hardened, fighting against guerilla militants on and off since at least 2004. On the 8th of June, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan attacked Jinnah Airport in Karachi with RPGs and gunfire resulting in the deaths of 34 people, according to Reuters. This was not the time to poke the hornet's nest and the Pakistani army responded with a great show of force. As a result of the attack on Jinnah airport, Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched a week later on the 15th of July. Similar to Operation Rah-e-Nijat, around 30,000 soldiers pushed into North Waziristan to flush out the remaining militants staging attacks and training soldiers there, so reports the Huffington Post. The operation was, militarily speaking, a roaring success according to the Jamestown Foundation. Despite the deaths of 347 Pakistani soldiers, that proved to be the cost for killing 2,763 militants, capturing over 18,000 weapons and destroying over 800 hideouts in return, according to The Tribune. The South Asia Terrorism Portal states in its 2018 assessment that the number of total fatalities within FATA declined from 2,863 in 2014 to just 1,862 in 2015. This is equivalent to a year-on-year casualty reduction of over 36%. However, there were other costs for this success. In terms of finances, Zarb-e-Abz cost over 1.3 billion dollars according to Geo News, even for a successful operation that is expensive. If you wanted to extrapolate it out, Pakistan spent 470,000 dollars per militant killed if those numbers are accurate. There is also something to be said about the half a million people who were displaced by the conflict, according to Voices of America (VoA). Many people who lived in Waziristan had no home to return to owed to damage that was caused by the fighting. Many who have tried to return home, according to VoA had no running water or electricity for at least six years after the operation. A local man, Talibdeen, who spoke to VoA painted a stark picture of what many had returned home to. He said "My children are crying because they want their home. We don't have access to clean water or facilities such as schools, hospitals and medical dispensaries. When we were returning, they gave us two tents." "We used our own cloth and wood poles to create a wall around the area where our house once stood, but when the weather is bad, the cloth tears apart, and our women struggle to stitch it together again." Talibdeen's words remind us that there are always more costs to war than just the financials and the number of dead. VoA reports that there were 15,222 internally displaced families scheduled to return to their villages in North Waziristan as of 2020. And then there's the question over whether the operation truly worked. Yes, a reduction in violence in total terms is good. That is an unequivocal success of Zarb-e-Abz, but one could argue that all this operation did was kick the can down the road, it treated the symptom, not the cause. It hadn't eradicated extremism in Waziristan, or in Pakistan more widely. The BBC reported in 2017 that militant Islamic fundamentalist attacks still continued, just less frequently. Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan was still a major issue. Despite Operation Zarb-e-Abz driving out the militants of their strongholds in North Waziristan, it isn't out of the question that many high-profile militants escaped back into Afghanistan and simply waited for the heat to die down before re-entering Pakistan somewhere else, according to the Jamestown Foundation. So, without fixing the root cause, they were unable to change the root effect. This is how the conflict was in Waziristan and across Pakistan up until recently, a low-intensity conflict where attacks continued and the Pakistani government continually failed to stamp extremism out of the region once and for all. Pakistan passed their 25th amendment in May of 2018, officially federating FATA into the Kyber Pakhtunkhwa region. This officially abolished semi-autonomy in the region and bestowed its inhabitants with the rights guaranteed by Pakistani citizenship. This was likely done to give the Pakistani government more say and influence over the region and allowed them to keep a closer eye on it and the border with Afghanistan. Speaking of the border, a border fence between Pakistan and Afghanistan was built and mostly completed by 2021 according to Al-Jazeera. In theory this border fence would stop those who wished to cross the border from one nation to another. Crucially it would stop cross-border "attack and retreat" tactics by guerilla militants. Those who staged attacks successfully would struggle to escape whilst being hunted by Pakistani forces. In the simplest sense of walking across the land, that is true. However, as we well know by now, militants in this region don't tend to travel overground, but underground. It is highly unlikely that Pakistan is able to do anything about the extensive network of caves and tunnel systems that link it to Afghanistan, which means the border is by default, semi open. On September the 5th 2020, a terrorist on a bomb-clad motorcycle targeted a Pakistani army convoy on Mastung Road in Quetta, killing four personnel and injuring 20 others. The Pakistani Taliban have since claimed responsibility for this incident, showing the fence can only have so much of an effect when there are already extremists in your borders. However, some effect is not no effect. According to Al-Jazeera, the number of cross-border attacks into Pakistan from Afghanistan fell from 82 in 2019 to just 11 in 2020, although the pandemic could have had some effect on this. The fence has its drawbacks, it separates families from their relatives who live on the other side of the border. It also calls into question the border itself, which Afghanistan disputes owed to the Pashtun peoples in North West Pakistan and could potentially be the reasoning behind a direct state conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the future. Finally, the fence acts as a target for militants on the Afghan side of the border, with the BBC reporting a mortar shelling of a Pakistani border town in 2022 which killed 17 people. In 2021, the fate of Waziristan once again changed direction for the worse, as the US pulled out of Afghanistan two decades after first invading. Within months the Taliban had taken back control of the country. This posed a new challenge for Waziristan, as despite the fence and the operation to drive the fundamentalist militants out of Pakistan, the Taliban no longer needed a staging ground in Pakistan, as all of Afghanistan was now their staging ground. Not only this but the Taliban in Afghanistan were armed with more resources and equipment than ever, considering the seven billion dollars' worth left behind by the US, according to CNN. NBC News reported in 2023 that US arms were already finding their way into other conflicts, including Pakistan's ongoing 3-way Kashmir conflict alongside India and China. Therefore Pakistan now has the Taliban, more well-equipped than ever on its porous border, with no real way of totally stemming the infiltration of terrorists, guns and radical ideals into their country. The Taliban's triumph in Afghanistan has re-galvanised the Pakistani Taliban who now have a state-sized ally to support their operations, as well as a safe haven to stage attacks from. It is no surprise then that Pakistan's caretaker Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar told Radio Free Europe that the number of terrorist incidents in Pakistan had increased by 60 percent in November of 2023. There is simply only so much a fence can do. ## Waziristan Today Waziristan today, in a way, is how it always has been. An unstable region balancing on a knife-edge with many internal and external actors trying to influence it as it rebuilds itself. No matter who is "in charge" of the region, it appears to remain a place where fundamentalist Islamic ideologies are bred and trained. You only need to see the 2017 pictures posted by the BBC of defunct bomb factories in North Waziristan to understand the entrenchment of these radical ideas in the region. Northern Waziristan specifically remains a target for attacks, such as when a girl's private school was blown up there on the 10th of May 2024 with zero causalities. The peril of the people who live near the Durand Line has spanned centuries. Generations of people have been blown up, shot, injured, radicalised, invaded, colonised and displaced. It makes you wonder whether it would have been better for the Pashtun people to be given what they wanted back in 1947, a national homeland. The drawing and subsequent following of the Durand Line has led to misery, war and jihad so long-spanning that it is still affecting global geopolitics today. Could all of that bloodshed have been avoided? Could more still be avoided? The cynical answer is it's unlikely to change now. Despite Afghanistan's dispute over the border, the Durand Line is an internationally recognised border by most of the world. As a result, it is unlikely to change any time soon, which means Taliban-run Afghanistan will sustain an influence over the North-West of the country, and so attacks from the TTP will continue, bolstered by support from abroad. One thing is for sure though, no matter what happens to the land of Waziristan, the people who live there are warriors and survivors, they will be ready. ## Key Takeaways - Waziristan is a mountainous region in Pakistan and Afghanistan, historically a hotbed for extremist Islamic ideologies. - The Durand Line, drawn in the 19th century, has divided Pashtun communities and fueled long-standing conflicts. - Waziristan's rugged terrain has made it difficult to invade but has also hindered economic development. - The region has been a staging ground for various militant groups, including the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. - Pakistan's military operations in Waziristan have had mixed results, reducing violence but not eradicating extremism. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### Where is Waziristan located? Waziristan is located on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan in the North West of Pakistan. It is roughly 11,585 square kilometres in size and is divided into North and South Waziristan. ### What is the terrain like in Waziristan? Waziristan is a mountainous area with hills gradually rising from East to West until they reach staggering peaks over 3,000 metres in the Southern half of the region. The Northern half is less mountainous but has large hills and vast valleys. ### What are the major crops grown in Waziristan? The major crops grown in Waziristan are maize, fruit, and wheat, with some sugar and rice to supplement. However, recent patterns of erratic weather, droughts, and a lack of water infrastructure have resulted in an agricultural downturn. ### What is the population of Waziristan? According to the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics, there is just short of 1.6 million people living in Waziristan. ### What are the major tribes in Waziristan? The major tribes in Waziristan are the Wazirs, Mehsuds, Bhittanis, and Dawars, among other smaller tribes. The majority of the tribes are Pashtun, meaning they speak the Pashto language. ### What is the religious and cultural background of Waziristan? Waziristan is predominantly Sunni Islamic, adhering to the Hanafi school of thought. The people also follow Pashtunwali, the traditional tribal code, which facilitates their society. They are known for being conservative and following a strict code in accordance with their tribal culture and Islam. ### What is the historical significance of the Durand Line? The Durand Line was established in 1893 between Afghanistan's Abdur Rahman Khan and Britain's Sir Henry Mortimer Durand. It delineated the borders between Afghanistan and British India, cutting through local villages and dividing communities, which would eventually lead to disaster. ### What was the Bannu Resolution? The Bannu Resolution was declared in 1947 by Mirzali Khan and his allies straddling the Durand Line. It demanded that the Pashtuns be given a choice to have an independent state of Pashtunistan composing all Pashtun majority territories of British India. However, the Pashtuns were instead given the choice to join Pakistan or India, and the resolution was ultimately ignored. ### What role did Waziristan play during the Soviet-Afghan War? During the Soviet-Afghan War, Waziristan acted as a safe haven for foreign Mujahideen from Central Asia. It was a staging ground and breeding ground for extremist Islamic ideas, with the Pakistani government and the US supporting the Mujahideen by proxy. ### What was Operation Zarb-e-Azb? Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched by the Pakistani army in 2014 to flush out militants from North Waziristan. It was a major military offensive that resulted in the deaths of 2,763 militants and the capture of over 18,000 weapons, but it also displaced half a million people and cost over 1.3 billion dollars. ## Sources - [Original Places video: Waziristan: The Terrorist Training Ground](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Io0tFHUCik) - [Hero image source](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/57/Aerial_landscape_view_%282017%29.jpg) by Saga1111 / openverse, by-sa. ## Related Coverage