Umar Daraz Wazir is a correspondent for RFE/RL's Radio Mashaal in North Waziristan, Pakistan. His reporting focuses on militant violence and the challenges of rehabilitating the region after nearly two decades of insurgent violence.
Early this month, military authorities in South Waziristan ordered more than 1,100 Shabikhel families in leaving their homes once again. The displaced families were residents of the Shaktoi, Smaal, and Bobarh villages in Ladha.
Khan Beguma’s story is a tale of unending agony and inspiring courage and resilience.
Noor Kalam Wazir had to abandon his dream of becoming a scientist after fighting forced his family to abandon their North Waziristan homeland in northwestern Pakistan three years ago.
Residents of North Waziristan, one of the seven districts in western Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, are sick of long queues, unending questions, lengthy paperwork, and long delays to visit their homeland or even leave it.
North Waziristan residents say the region is now militant-free and a tenuous peace has returned to towns and villages where civilians were tormented by suicide bombings and assassinations, Pakistani military counterterrorism sweeps, and U.S. drone strikes targeting militant leaders.
The likely reopening of a major trade route with Afghanistan has brought joy to North Waziristan, a beleaguered tribal district in northwestern Pakistan.
The youth in a tribal district in northwestern Pakistan are determined to rebuild their lives and strive for their rights after suffering years of terrorist brutality and displacement.
The residents of a tribal district in northwestern Pakistan are attempting to rebuild their homeland after enduring years of terrorist tyranny and displacement by military operations.
Cumbersome mandatory Pakistani security clearances are preventing thousands of immigrant workers from visiting their families in the country’s restive western tribal areas.
In a sign that the Taliban are expected to retain a powerful presence in a restive Pakistani region, a senior militant commander claims to have negotiated successfully with Islamabad.
Nearly one million residents of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal region are desperate to repatriate to their homeland.
Thousands of displaced families from the North Waziristan tribal district are reluctant to leave school buildings in the nearby districts of Bannu and Lakki Marwat because of high rents and a lack of government aid.
Tens of thousands of civilians who are stuck in a northwestern tribal region of Pakistan face chronic food shortages and a lack of services as sporadic fighting between the military and Taliban militants continues.
Civilians in a remote northwestern region of Pakistan have rejected government claims that airstrikes targeting their community are killing militants.
In what is seen as a major embarrassment for Islamabad, thousands of Pakistani tribespeople have now crossed into Afghanistan in the wake of a major Pakistani military offensive launched in their North Waziristan homeland in mid-June.
