Federally Administered Tribal Areas

(CC) Image: Pahari Sahib
The blue portion of this map shows Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous Tribal Agencies.

Along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan Pakistan exercises a measure of authority over Pakistan's Tribal Agencies. Most of the population of the seven Tribal agencies are traditional, conservative muslims. The agencies are: the Bajaur Agency, the Mohmand Agency, the Khyber Agency, the Orakzai Agency, the Kurram Agency and North Waziristan and South Waziristan.

Most of the tribes in the Tribal Agencies are Pashtun -- the same ethnic group that was the Taliban's power base in Afghanistan. It is widely speculated that Osama bin Laden escaped Afghanistan at a border crossing into one of the Tribal Agencies.