INTERNATIONAL
PAKISTAN MARBLE HELPS
TALIBAN STAY IN BUSINESS
ZIARAT, Pakistan -- The mountain of white marble shines
with such brilliance in the sun it looks like snow. For four
years, the quarry beneath it lay dormant, its riches captive to
tribal squabbles and government ineptitude, in this corner of
Pakistan’s tribal areas.
But in April, the Taliban appeared and imposed a firm
hand. They settled the feud between the tribes, demanded a fat
fee upfront and a tax on every truck that ferried the treasure
from the quarry. Since then, Mir Zaman, a contractor from
the Masaud subtribe, which was picked by the Taliban to run
the quarry, has watched contentedly as his trucks roll out of
the quarry with colossal boulders bound for refining in nearby
towns.
“With the Taliban it is not a question of a request to us,
but a question of force,” said Zaman, a bearded, middle-aged
tribal leader who seemed philosophical about the reality of
Taliban authority here. “At least the quarry was now operat-
ing”, he said.
The takeover of the Ziarat marble quarry, a coveted na-
tional asset, is one of the boldest examples of how the Tal-
iban have made Pakistan’s tribal areas far more than a base
for training camps or a launching pad for sending fighters into
Afghanistan.
A rare, unescorted visit to the region this month, during
which the Taliban detained for two days, a freelance reporter
and photographer working for The New York Times, revealed
how the Taliban is taking over territory, using the income they
24 August 08
exact, to strengthen their hold and turn themselves into a self-
sustaining fighting force. The quarry alone has already brought
the Taliban tens of thousands of dollars, Zaman said.
The seizure of the quarry is a measure of how in recent
months, as the Pakistani military has pulled back under a se-
ries of peace deals, the Pakistani Taliban have extended their
reach through more of the rugged 600-mile-long territory in
northern Pakistan, known as the Federally Administered Trib-
al Areas, or FATA.
Today, the Taliban not only settles disputes in their con-
solidated domain but they also levy taxes, smuggle drugs and
other contraband, and impose their own brand of rough jus-
tice, complete with courts and prisons.
From the security of this border region, they pivot their
fighters and suicide bombers in two directions: against NATO
and U.S. forces over the border in southern Afghanistan, and
against Pakistani forces -- police, army and intelligence of-
ficials -- in major Pakistani cities.
The quarry here in the Mohmand tribal district, strategi-
cally situated between the city of Peshawar and the Afghan
border, is a new effort by the Taliban to harness the abundant
natural resources of a region where there are plenty of other
mining operations for coal, gold, copper and chromate.
Of all the minerals in the tribal areas, the marble from Zi-
arat is one of the most highly prized for use in expensive floors
and walls in Pakistan, and in limited quantities abroad.
A government body, the FATA Development Authority,
failed over the last several years to mediate a dispute between
the Masaud and Gurbaz subtribes over how the mining rights
to the marble should be allocated, according to Pakistani gov-
ernment officials familiar with the quarry, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity, because of the effort’s failure.
A new government mining corporation, Pakistan Stone
Development Co., offered last year to invest in modern mining
machinery, but even with the lure of added value, the develop-
ment authority could not sort out the feud.
The arguments were fierce because the tribes knew that
the Ziarat marble was of particularly fine texture and purity,
comparable to Italian Carrara marble, according to an assess-
ment done for the FATA Development Authority.
The Taliban came eager for a share of the business. Their
reputation for brutality and the weakness of the local govern-
ment allowed the Taliban to settle the dispute in short order.
Today the quarry operation is rudimentary, using dyna-
mite, which harms the marble and renders production ex-
tremely inefficient. Antiquated trucks grind their way up the
steep, tiered roadways carved into the mountainside to haul
the rock away. But the quarry’s reopening has given some-
thing to everyone.
The local tribes are profiting along with the Taliban. Once
the trucks reach the processing plants, the government, too,
collects a hefty tax, nearly double that of the Taliban, Zaman
said, though there was no way to verify the claim. The Taliban
INTERNATIONAL
appeared to have no problem with the government taking a
share, he said.
So far, he said, the Taliban were overseeing the opera-
tion with a light hand: a single armed Taliban fighter sat at a
checkpoint not far from Zaman’s hut, to ensure that the tax
was paid.
The Taliban is today a loose organization of mostly eth-
nic Pashtuns divided in two wings, one on each side of the
border. Their leader in Mohmand goes by the name Abdul
Wali, a guerrilla fighter in his 30s who rose to prominence last
year when his group occupied a famous shrine in the village
of Ghazi Abad in Mohmand.
He is affiliated with the overall leader of the Pakistani
Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, a powerful ally of al-Qaida who
keeps his base in South Waziristan, another part of the tribal
areas.
Working with al-Qaida, the Taliban have steadily tight-
ened their grip over much of the tribal areas in the last several
years by cowing or killing hundreds of local tribal chiefs who
were the area’s traditional authorities.
In Mohmand, the Taliban have speedily consolidated
control in the last year. They have filled a vacuum left by a
vacillating government, unable and unwilling to assert its
authority, said Munir Orekzei, a member of Parliament from
Kurram, southwest of Mohmand, one of the seven districts, or
agencies, in the tribal areas.
“In every agency the most powerful man is the Taliban,”
Orekzei said. “Because if someone says, ‘I’m in favor of the
government,’ he will be killed.”
At the same time, people in the tribal areas believe some
branches of the Pakistani government are encouraging the
Taliban in their route to power, he said.
Orekzei said he recently attended a meeting with Rehman
Malik, the Pakistani interior minister, and tribal leaders in Pe-
shawar, capital of the nearby North-West Frontier Province.
“Rehman Malik asked why the people in the tribal areas
were not fighting back against the Taliban,” Orekzei said. “I
told him the people believe the government is behind the Tal-
iban. I said, you tell the public what you are doing, and if they
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