Is this really a good idea:
Pakistan plans to arm tens of thousands of anti-Taliban tribal fighters in its western border region in hopes — shared by the U.S. military — that the nascent militias can replicate the tribal “Awakening” movement that proved decisive in the battle against al-Qaeda in Iraq.
The militias, called lashkars, will receive Chinese-made AK-47 assault rifles and other small arms, a purchase arranged during a visit to Beijing this month by Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistani officials said.
Do you really want to pump in tons of small arms into an area of great lawlessness and tribal rivalry?
Very interesting website! I have a huge interest in the Middle East, especially Egypt. I “stumbled” across this blog while looking for some information on Egypt. It’s great though, and I can’t wait to read more. Feel free to check out my blog sometime:
http://www.leahomar.wordpress.com
No man, no problem
They’re throwing all the tricks they have at the region out of sheer desperation, but several counterinsurgency experts have weighed in, a while ago, on why the awakenings model couldn’t work in the Pakistan FATA – primarily because the baddies are not outsiders, but locals, and there isn’t much evidence of enough grassroots discontent with the AQ folks to give an awakenings-type group some traction; the tribal leaders are unlikely to have an incentive to work with the government the way Iraqi tribal leaders do, because unlike the latter, they don’t stand to lose much in terms of state jobs and resources by simply going their own way; and for chrissakes does anyone remember that this is an area and a bunch of people that everyone from the Brits in the 1880s has tried to control and failed?