The Militants Strike Back; Musharraf sent troops to the tribal areas to close the net on extremists. But they are bringing the fight to him.

Byline: Owen Matthews and Sami Yousafzai

Mohammad Bilal's personal jihad against the enemies of Islam was rudely interrupted about two months ago. President Pervez Musharraf ordered the deployment of 70,000 Pakistani troops into his refuge in southern Waziristan, a lawless tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, in an effort to hunt down supporters of Al Qaeda. Bilal, along with hundreds of other militants, fled the Army's sweep to seek safer lairs. Bilal escaped to Quetta; some moved upcountry to other tribal regions; many ended up in Karachi, Pakistan's largest city.

The fugitives brought terror with them. Since May, both Karachi and Quetta have witnessed a surge in terrorist attacks unlike any since the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. "We will never allow the Americans to make Muslim lands their colonies," says Bilal, surrounded by fellow pro-Taliban fighters in a dark teashop in Quetta. "We will push back the U.S. occupiers from Afghanistan, and we will fight Musharraf."

Bilal's rant may be standard jihadi bluff--but Musharraf nevertheless has serious cause for concern. Operations in the mountains of Waziristan, intended to stamp out militants and encouraged by the United States, may only be spread-ing terror to Pakistan's cities--where it can do far more damage to the country's stability. Deputy Inspector General Javed Bokhari, head of Karachi's Crime Investigation Department, blames the recent upsurge in violence on an influx of what he calls "trained, committed militants" coming down from the highlands. Once in the city, these militants easily mix into Karachi's indigenous subculture of political and sectarian militancy, team-ing up with local outfits to sow even more destruction. "Musharraf's challenge is not to create more enemies than he destroys," says one senior Western diplomat in Islamabad.

It's a balance that is proving hard to strike. Two major Army operations in Waziristan since April have so far netted no high-value targets, though two Qaeda-linked commanders were killed--Nek Mohammad, a Pakistani tribal chief who was close to the Taliban, and Abdul Rahim el Khader, a suspected terrorist financier. At the same time the blowback has been fierce: since the first operation in Waziristan, a bomb blast in Karachi came close to killing the commander of Pakistan's Fifth Army Corps; a bomb was planted near the residence of the U.S. consul-general; two Shiite mosques were destroyed, killing 59 people, and Mufti Shamzi, a senior Sunni cleric, was assassinated. Qaeda-linked militants are suspected of having a hand in all the attacks.

In Karachi, police fear an unholy alliance between such militants and local groups bent on sectarian violence. The career of Atta ur Rahman, arrested last month for masterminding the attack on the commander of the Fifth Army Corps, is a good example of how the lines are blurring in Karachi's militant ...