Increasingly, the focus on the War on Terrorism is turning to Pakistan’s troubled tribal region. Both the current Bush administration and the incoming Obama transition team have singled out the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region as a high priority. This insightful article by Sheikh Hasina, Bangladesh’s newly elected prime minister who previously served in that office from 1996 to 2001, and Carl Ciovacco provides policy makers struggling with this issue a template for successful action. – EDITOR, Armchair General magazine

As counterterrorism experts and statesmen around the world ponder the best strategy to defeat al Qaida and the Taliban, a nuanced approach at solving the ills of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) could provide the answer. By transforming the region from a lawless, drug supplying, smuggling epicenter bent on fighting the federal government and instigating international violence, to a rehabilitated province flourishing with schools, hospitals, and a legitimate agrarian source of income, al Qaida and the Taliban would find themselves without a home. This rehabilitation would usher in conditions inhospitable to drug and arms smugglers and terrorists. What bunker-busters and guns have failed to do to al Qaida and the Taliban hiding in the remote mountainous lattice, tribal area rehabilitation could accomplish. The success story of the Chittagong Hill Tract (CHT) tribal area of Bangladesh could serve as a template to heal Pakistan’s tribal region and effectively smoke the terrorists out of their safe-haven.

The similarities between the CHT tribal region in Bangladesh and the FATA in Pakistan are striking. Both tribal areas are remote, autonomy-seeking, mountainous enclaves on the borders of their respective countries, and marginalized by the ruling majority party. They are extremely poor and only account for a small portion of their country’s total land mass and population. Opium, weapons and drug smuggling, and armed conflict between the tribes and their government thrived in the CHT as it does today in the FATA. How then has the Chittagong become a law-abiding area that now produces corn for its country instead of opium while the FATA remains a thorn in the side of Pakistan, its neighbors, and the rest of the world? The answer to this question may supply a remedy to al Qaida and the Taliban’s increased control and influence over the region and its opium trade. If Pakistan can make the FATA look more like the Chittagong, al Qaida and the Taliban will lose not only their base of operations but also the drug money that is helping fund their global terrorist network.

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