 In reaction, this led to the formation of counterinsurgent tribal militias in Deim Zubeir.The Dutch scholar Daniel Blocq, who was a UN military observer in Wau after 2005, argues ""that the emergence of the Fertit militia was principally a grassroots phenomenon stemming from local tensions and conflicts"", before such groups were co-opted and armed by the military intelligence of successive regimes in Khartoum for counterinsurgency.According to Samson Wassara, a leading South Sudanese scholar of political science, it was a militia with the euphemistic name National Peace Forces that operated in the area throughout the war.