'From Mujahideen Heroes To Taliban Terrorists', Press TV, 15 February 2009

EXCERPT: "The Areas on both sides of the modern Afghan border, beginning in Bajaur and traveling south west all the way to Baluchistan have been home to a group of fiercely independent, closely interlinked, formidable warriors for thousands of years. The region -much reduced by the 19th century- was an independent tribal territory until 1893 and remained outside the British Empire, with frequent skirmishes a trademark in relations between the Waziri tribesmen and British rule. Surviving historic documents and written accounts from Iran's Achaemenid Empire of 2500 years ago indicate that even then there were troubles on Eranshahr's (Persian Empire) borders with tribes that closely fit the modern-day description of the region's peoples. Around one thousand years later during Iran's Sassanid Dynasty rule, Eranshar's top warrior princes, fell prey to a major trap set by the same tribes, greatly bereaving the Royal Household. In more recent times Waziri tribes fought alongside the Pashtun Mujahideen against the Soviet presence in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After the Taliban rule was formed in Afghanistan, Waziri fighting men went back to their old way of life in the north and south Wazirestan districts situated in modern-day Pakistan."

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See also:
'Taliban in Swat valley call 10-day ceasefire', The Telegraph, 16 February 2009
'6 Taliban killed in Bajaur operation', Daily Times, 16 February 2009
'Peace talks could split Pakistani Taliban', The National, 16 February 2009
'US hits Pakistan's tribal areas in second strike', The Weekly Standard, 16 February 2009
'The roots of terrorism are internal, not external', Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 13 February 2009

Related posts:
'Security up at porous Afghan border', 12 February 2009
'Coordinated Kabul assault shows Taliban strength', 11 February 2009
'The return of the Taliban', 27 January 2009
'Afghanistan, Pakistan: The battlespace of the border', 14 October 2008
'Still a dangerous border', 5 May 2008