FEATURE: On the frontline

Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked attacks are almost a daily occurrence across the northwest tribal belt, with local villages bearing the brunt of the attacks.

Radio Australia reporter Mustafa Qadri visited the frontline village of Adezai, which marks the boundary between the city of Peshawar and the tribal areas.

There he went on patrol with the tribal militia as they guarded the village borders from Taliban attacks.

Mustafa Qadri

Last Updated: Wed, 9 Mar 2011 16:19:00 +1100

I'm in the village of Adezai. It's about 30 minutes drive from the city centre and literally on the frontier boundary of the city of Peshawar.

This is a settled part of Pakistan but it feels like you are on a frontline.

Here, ordinary people are fighting for their village.

One villager, Irshad, says if people from Adezai were to travel to neighbouring tribal areas controlled by the Taliban they would be killed.

He says the same fate awaits any Taliban members who travel to his village.

"We kill them because they are our enemies. I think that our village is a battle field."

As the powerful hum of an Army helicopter blares above our heads, I'm told Pakistan forces are also engaged in operations against the Taliban in neighbouring Khyber tribal agency.

In Adezai, suspected Taliban militants destroyed two homes on the outskirts of the village and a few months earlier blew up the local girls' school.

Most surprisingly, villagers say they know many of the men they are fighting against.

Militia member Hafiz Sajid Raza says he knows many Taliban members.

"Yes we still know quite a few Taliban, some came from our village and those from outside our village, I know about 80 per cent," he said.

"There is a Taliban commander called Qari Ayub, he is a school teacher and he used to come to our school a lot when I was studying."

For Hafiz Sajid Raza the violence has been personal.

"The Taliban who killed my father in Karachi, he called me to say he killed my father, he said 'you must be very sad about that.'"

"After that we captured his brother in Bora. He was involved with the Taliban too. I rang him to say I have captured your brother. If you are so strong and do not fear death come and rescue your brother...He did not come, so we killed his brother."

When asked if he ever thinks about having taken someone's life, Hafiz Sajid Raza replies: "Yes of course. In the Quran it says, he who kills a man it is as though he has killed all humanity."

"But it also says in the Quran that it is permitted under Islam to take the life of he who has taken someone else's life. A boy's life for a boy, a woman for a woman, and a male for a male."

Later on, young men gather in the hujra, something of a community hall in the heart of Adezai village, waiting for their turn in the night's patrol.

Eventually, Irshad tells me it is time to go.

The patrol scopes the entire village all night till about 5.00am.

One militia member says they will patrol every night, to protect his family and the village against the Taliban and "so we do not face any of their atrocities".

Another night, another night patrol passes: this time with few disruptions. But it is only a matter of time before the fighting commences again.

Two days after I left Adezai, the Taliban again bomb the girls' school that was damaged in a previous attack.

For the people of Adezai, this conflict is not a distant war but an everyday matter of survival.

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