Pakistani tribesman are organizing private armies, or "lashkars," to fight the jihadis in the tribal areas:
By encouraging the private armies, or "lashkars," the government is exploiting local resentment against foreign and Pakistani extremists in the area, considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders.
"These Taliban call themselves Muslims, but they have been involved in all kinds of crimes," said Malik Mohmmand Habib, a leader of the Salarzai tribe, one of the largest of at least five tribes who have formed lashkars in recent weeks. "We want them out of our area."
Habib claims up to 15,000 men in his lashkar. Similar figures have been given by other leaders of private armies but those claims could not be independently verified. Analysts caution tribesman are likely exaggerating, perhaps by as much as 50 percent.
The lashkars have drawn comparisons with government-backed militia in Iraq — the so-called awakening councils — that have been credited with beating back the insurgency there.
But the lashkars are less organized and the tribesman use their own, often aging, weapons. The government does not admit to funding the armies, but analysts suspect the leaders at least receive money.
I suspect that we are behind the money. It is not in our interest to admit we are payng them, but we have the most interest in hiring them and the most resources to pay them. Which is why I assume we are paying them.
These lashkars could be a different kind of awakening for a new style of campaign to beat the Taliban and al Qaeda in their Pakistan sanctuary.
