Discussion of Pakistan's troublesome Tribal Areas is heating up again because of the latest NIE information, only a portion of which was declassified and released.
The estimate concluded that "the U.S. Homeland will face a persistent and evolving terrorist threat over the next three years." Al-Qaeda, it said, "is and will remain" the most serious element of that threat.
These areas did not simply happen as a result of al Qaeda. Resistant to colonization, the Brits created them as a buffer between a then united India and Afghanistan back in 1947.
The British devised a special system of political administration to govern the freedom-loving Pashtun tribes who resisted colonial rule with a determination unparalleled in the subcontinent.
The tribal people were granted maximum autonomy and allowed to run their affairs in accordance with their Islamic faith, customs and traditions.
Every previous Pakistani government has promised reforms for the region, even long before al Qaeda, but it has never come to be. Point being, it isn't simply a matter of Musharraf taking back some now lawless part of Pakistan, military intervention there is seen as invasion based upon historical perspective.
It is a failed Islamic state in modern terms, though the people there, basically poor and uneducated, most likely don't have much appreciation for genuine modernization, apart perhaps from what it's done for light weapons over the years.
PBS actually has a pretty good map up of the area, as well as some click-able background and history.
Bill Roggio, who follows events in Pakistan along with his other coverage, has something of a fund drive going, as well as some recent reports.
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