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PASHTUNS

There are more than seven million Pashtuns living in the Pakistan. All of them are Muslims. More than half live in or on the fringes of the Indus plain. These constitute the "settled districts" of Peshawar, Mardan, Kohat, Bannu, Dera Ismail Khan, Swat, Dir and Hazara. The other three million or so Pushto-speakers inhabit tribal territory in the hills and mountains to the north and west of the Indus. The political agencies from south to north are South Waziristan, North Waziristan, Kurram, Orakzai, Khyber, Mohmand and Bajaur. Further north and east, and with only a minority Pathan population is the Gilgit Agency, of which Hunza, Nagar and Baltistan are parts, now called the Northern Areas.

The Pushto speaking area begins at the western end of the Himalayas. On the other side of Durand Line are Afghanistan's Pashtuns, perhaps five million in number.

The Pathan tribal structure is far more complex than the mere division of their residences into tribal territory and settled districts would indicate. All Pashtuns belong to one of the three great branches of the race. Each branch, the Sarbani, the Bhitanni (with Ghilzai as its descendant) and the Ghurghushti, traces its descent from a son of their common ancestor, Qais. Each branch has dozens of tribes; to name only a few of the best known, the Shinwari and the Yusufzai are Sarbanis, the great semi-nomad sects of Sulaiman Khel and Aka Khel are Ghilzai, and the Afridis and Wazirs are Ghurghushti. All of the tribes named have members in Afghanistan as well as Pakistan.

The tribal system of the Pashtuns is complex. Each tribe has several khels, or clans; the khels break up into extended family systems of varying degrees of magnitude. Some of these subdivisions are also known as khels while some are called kors or kahols. However, an individual khel may have lost all connection with its parent tribe and may be larger than other tribes which have several khels, and two unconnected groups may have the same name. There is a Sepah clan among both the Afridis and Shinwaris, and Usman Khel among both Mohmands and Mahsud.

Despite the awareness of all Pashtuns of their common religion, language and history, customs, dress, and even physical appearance may vary from family to family, khel to khel and tribe to tribe.

4 posted on 02/11/2006 11:26:45 AM PST by Cannoneer No. 4 (Our enemies act on ecstatic revelations from their god. We act on the advice of lawyers.)
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To: Cannoneer No. 4
And another thing to realize about the tribes in that region - the word for cousin and enemy are the same.

Their favorite sport is shooting at outsiders. If there are no outsiders, they fall back on shooting at each other.

In that regard, it is very difficult to discern violence begat by the presence of the Taliban from the normal background violence present without outsiders.

17 posted on 02/11/2006 1:45:05 PM PST by dirtboy (I'm fat, I sleep most of the winter and I saw my shadow yesterday. Does that make me a groundhog?)
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To: Cannoneer No. 4

In other words...the Klingons


20 posted on 02/11/2006 3:05:09 PM PST by wildcatf4f3 (I'm becoming a performance artist so i can crap on the koran in public)
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