'IDP Hosts Increasingly Wary of Undercover Militants', IRIN News, 29 October 2009

EXCERPT: "Fear and a growing wariness on the part of potential IDP hosts means some South Waziristan internally displaced persons (IDPs) are finding it hard to get accommodation in the neighbouring districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank. 'No one is ready to take us, because they think we are sympathetic to the militants battling government forces,' said Wazirullah Mehsud, 60. He also believes that because those fleeing the battle zone are Mehsuds - from the same tribe as the leaders of the Taliban based in South Waziristan - hosts are sometimes reluctant to take them in. 'The thing is that some of the people coming from South Waziristan could be militants. Dera Ismail Khan has seen many bomb attacks and other violent incidents in recent years. We are scared to keep people from South Waziristan in our homes, especially when many of them are men, because they could have links to the militants,' said Salim Khan, a local shopkeeper. Maj-Gen Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistan military, told the media: 'Militants are shaving their beards and mingling with ordinary people to try and flee.' Continuing attacks are adding to people's apprehensions. A car bomb in a crowded market area in Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, killed at least 100 people on 28 October."

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Related articles:
IDPs' hosts need govt help, The Nation, 28 October 2009
Over 27000 IDP families of South Waziristan registered, DAWN, 28 October 2009
Harrowing tales of flight from Waziristan, IRIN News, 22 October 2009