Pashtuns say they are caught in someone else's war

An estimated 40 million-50 million Pashtuns live in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Mostly organized into dozens of tribes, the Pashtuns live in the heart of the South-Central Asian region, which since the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, has turned into the central front in the war on terrorism. The group is often associated with extremist Taliban members and Pashtun tribes are accused of sheltering international terrorists.

Since the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the region has seen more than 1 million Pashtuns killed and millions more displaced in various rounds of fighting in that country.

But over the past five years, fighting has also devastated large parts of the once peaceful Pashtun border regions in Pakistan. Thousands of government soldiers, militants, and civilians have been killed.

These already impoverished regions now face a near economic collapse as a humanitarian crisis develops. The fighting in Bajuar and Kurram tribal districts in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) has already displaced some 300,000 civilians during the past few weeks — some of them even seeking refuge in Afghanistan.

Local leaders say that millions of Pashtuns in the area are the biggest victims of terrorism.

Afrasiab Khattak, a senior leader of the Pashtun Nationalist Awami National Party in Peshawar, says that on both sides of the border "Pashtuns have paid a very heavy price in the war against terror."

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