I usually try to avoid reading such news articles because it just burns my heart to see the injustice and difference that is present in our media here in Pakistan. The media is all “Talibanised”, if it involves attacks on the taliban and people displaced because of that, it will be all over the News but when it comes to places like Parachinar (which taliban have put under a blockade since more than a year now with the help of Bangash tribes through which the Parachinar highway passes), they are quite.

No one from media is saying that Bangash tribes are being supported (or perhaps forced) by taliban from all Tribal Agencies of Pakistan; not to mention foreign fighters i.e. Arabs, Chechens, Uzbaks, Afghans helping the Bangash tribes against the Shia Bangash and Turi Tribes in Parachinar with fundings from their Arab fathers.

The same elements are arrogantly asking or forcing the Bangash tribes on the highway to Parachinar to keep the blockade so no food & medical supplies reach Parachinar and so no member of Shia Bangash tribe or the Turi tribe can go safely by the highway to their homes in Parachinar. If any of them tries to pass through, they will be ambushed, killed on the spot or kidnapped to be cut in pieces alive and then slaughtered to death, all on camera and the tapes then being sent with their mutilated bodies…

I am writing this in reference to a news article in Dawn News Peshawar of August, 24 2008 on Page 17 by Abdul Sami Paracha. He quotes report from a Bangash tribal leader who claims that foreign agents from Iran & Afghanistan are helping the Shia Bangash & Turi Tribes of Parachinar in the clashes with them & that they have assassinated one of them as Government did not release video in which they confessed to be Afghan and that they were sent to help Shia Bangash & Turi Tribes. The claim is ridiculous, even if considered true for a minute then let me just put forward some questions.

1) If the Pakistani Government is not doing anything about the blockade imposed on the people of Parachinar & if the Bangash tribes on Parachinar Highway do not guarantee safety of the Shia Bangash & Turi Tribes on the said highway; then what exactly should the people of Parachinar do? Human life cannot go normally if there is no supply route. They have no safe way of doing business or travel left now except routes through Afghanistan which are not safe again because of taliban presence on routes there. What do you suggest they do?

2) If “mujaheddin” from every muslim country can march to Afghanistan against Soviets in a war supported by United States AND if taliban from every tribal agency, elements from every banned “Jihadi” faction & foreign fighters can march with Bangash tribes against Shia Bangash & Turi Tribes in Parachinar then why can’t the so called “Foreign Agents” help the theoretically outnumbered and outgunned Shia Bangash & Turi Tribes?

Nay, Allah is your protector, and He is the best of helpers.
[3:150 - The Holy Quran]