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Pakistani military, which he says is "bombarding our areas and killing innocent people. We don't have any choice but to resist."
The menacing rattle of machine-gun fire echoes in the distance. Nearby, another fighter listens to a wireless unit to extract
information about the movement of government troops.

The guerrillas belong to the shadowy Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), an insurgent group that's said to have 5,000 men under
arms, waging a bitter war in the southwestern province of Baluchistan against Pakistan's government. Baluchistan is the largest,
poorest and least-populated province in the country—but it has large quantities of natural gas, coal and copper, and it supplies
half of all Pakistan's energy needs. The rebels, like most of the 6.5 million people in the province, want greater political autonomy
and more control over the region's abundant mineral resources.

The Baluchs have chafed at Islamabad's treatment for decades. One of their chief complaints is that the government has been
stingy with royalty payments for gas supplies. The province has its own assembly, but observers say the Pakistani Army effectively
runs the place, a major irritant in a fiercely independent tribal region.

Tensions flared last year when President Pervez Musharraf established three new Army garrisons in the province. The military
already has 70,000 troops confronting Qaeda-backed Islamic militants in neighboring North-West Frontier province. Now it's
locked in a new battle with a secular separatist movement in Baluchistan that, analysts say, could become Musharraf's toughest
crisis. "Instability in Baluchistan would seriously destabilize an already fragile Pakistan," says Samina Ahmed, South Asia project
director for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group. And it could further unsettle neighboring Afghanistan. (Baluchistan is
home to an untold number of Taliban sympathesizers, who've been stoking resistance to the U.S.-backed government of Hamid
Karzai.)
The fighting in Baluchistan escalated last month, after Musharraf narrowly escaped an assassination attempt. The president was
visiting a military garrison in the rebel stronghold in Kohlu district, heavily populated by Marri tribesmen, when several rockets
exploded close by. A senior government official said it was a close call for the president, who has survived at least three
assassination attempts by Qaeda supporters.

Musharraf has vowed to crush the rebellion. "We will not allow anyone to challenge the writ of the state," he declared last week.
Thousands of paramilitary and Army troops, backed by Air Force jets and helicopter gunships, recently launched a major offensive.
Baluch nationalist leaders allege that hundreds of people, including women and children, were killed in bombardments in Kohlu
district. The military has denied the allegation, saying it was targeting only "terrorists."

The top tribal leader in the province is Akbar Khan Bugti, a former Baluchistan governor and one of the main leaders of what he
describes as the "Baluch national resistance." A white-bearded and charismatic chieftain in his late 70s, Bugti was Pakistan's
Defense minister in the 1950s. Today he lives in a mud fort in his hometown of Dera Bugti. The area has been under siege for the
last several weeks by government troops. Bugti and other nationalists accuse the government of doing little to develop the
province, and say Islamabad has refused to renegotiate the energy royalty rate, which has been unchanged since it was first set in
1952. "The denial of democratic rights and economic deprivation have compelled people to take up arms," Bugti said in an
interview with NEWSWEEK last week in his bullet-ridden fort. "It is war now."

Islamabad blames the tribes for holding back progress. According to Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the federal Information minister,
Islamabad has spent some $2 billion on various projects in Baluchistan over the last six years. "We are building roads and
developing infrastructure so that huge mineral resources in the province can be tapped," says Rashid. ( These are all lies. There is
no road building going on but military cantonments) He says the insurgents oppose development,( What devolopment? if military
cantonments and looting Baloch resources are development then Baloch suerly oppose them) and are killing engineers and
laborers working on infrastructure projects. "The tribal chiefs are obstructing the government's efforts to bring the province up to
par with other areas.( These are white lies. Where are Tribal Chiefs in Mekran and Kharan? Why they are so backward like stone
age? and Government claims 72 Tribal chiefs and Saradas are with him but only three. Where is development in those area
where Sardar and tribal chiefs are with the Governments? ) " Whoever is to blame, that could take a very long time: according to
Samna Ahmed of the ICG, Baluchistan has few schools, hospitals or businesses. "There's been virtually no development for 60
years," she says.

That's not to say that nothing is happening. A major new port is under construction in Gwadar, on the coast of the Arabian Sea. The
government says it could become a hub for Central Asia trade—but like most everything in the region, the port is a source of
tension. ( The port is being built to provide china a base to monitor his future energy supplies and the persian gulf oil supply. Also
milions of non-baloch Punjabi outsiders will be brought into Gwadar to render the local Balochs into minorty in their own homeland
and turn them into as red indian in Balochistan) Federal rules say that project managers must hire workers from all over the
country, based on provincial population. Since Baluchistan accounts for 7 percent of Pakistan's population, opportunities for
Baluchs will be minimal. Musharraf has acknowledged that Baluchistan hasn't gotten a fair shake over the years, but he hasn't
found a way to reconcile his authoritarian and modernist ways with the aspirations of the Baluchs. Until he does, the central
government will have to spend money that could be used to improve the lives of Baluchs just to keep the peace.
© 2006 Newsweek, Inc.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/10756815/site/newsweek/

NOTE: The Blue portions of this article are comments of BSO-NA.