The Swat Crisis - News, Articles, Opinions

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What the people of Swat really wanted](The News International: Latest News Breaking, World, Entertainment, Royal News)
Lakhkar Khan

The writer is a resident of Swat who had to flee his home and is currently living in Lahore.

The Feb 16 agreement has resulted in the planned promulgation of the Nizam-e-Adl regulation in Malakand division, in which Swat district is situated. The government’s plea is that this is the demand of the people of Malakand division. However, those who made this announcement – in particular the ANP chief minister Amir Haider Hoti – should know that the people of Malakand division voted in favour not of Sharia but for secular, nationalist and democratic parties in the general elections of 2008.

The fact of the matter is that the ANP and the PPP contested the election on the stand that they would fight to eliminate terrorism and extremism, so it is a bit ironic that both parties have now done just the opposite. They failed to face the situation in Swat and have gone down on bended knees before the extremists.

The people of Buner, Shangla, Malakand, Lower and Upper Dir and Chitral never voted for the implementation of Sharia and did not rise up against the state for its implementation. In Buner people actually went after and killed some of the militants, and rose together as one against the extremists. And as a result of this, the militants killed over 40 people in one village of Buner alone as revenge. Despite this the people of the area never surrendered to the extremists, so they are going to be right in wondering that if they did not surrender, why has the government done just that? They ask why the state, despite having all the resources to nip this evil in the bud, chose to yield to the extremists.

Sufi Mohammad, someone who is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of young men of Malakand, was inexplicably released from prison and his crimes of the past were conveniently forgiven. He is the very person who in 1994 challenged the writ of the state to the extent that his followers killed security personnel and even an MPA. This happened in Swat and Dir but the then Sherpao government ruling the NWFP for some reason withdrew all charges against Sufi Mohammad and his colleagues. In 2001, he declared jihad against the US in Afghanistan and took several thousand of his followers there to fight. Sufi Mohammed led these young men to their deaths in Afghanistan, and was the first to leave the battlefield together with his close followers when the American B-52 bombers came. Hundred of the others who went with him lost their lives and hundreds are still missing. On his return, the political agent of Kurram Agency imprisoned him under the Frontier Crimes Regulations and that was when his son-in-law, Fazlullah, filled the gap and established a foothold in Swat.

Strange are the way of politics in this country because one day someone is a killer and the next day he is labelled as a hero – and this is done by parties that claim to be the most secular and democratic in the country.

As for Fazlullalh, we all know what he did and continues to do. He challenged the state’s authority and his followed killed police constables, and army and paramilitary personnel in a most brutal manner. His group bombed schools and bridges, as well as the houses and hujras of many who tried to stand up to them. They deliberately targeted social, political and moderate religious figures and journalists in the district and many were killed and the rest compelled to leave Swat. Hundreds of thousands of people, like myself, were dislodged from their homes, and had to flee Swat. Most are now living a miserable life in other areas of Pakistan, and despite the so-called peace deal they are not sure if they can return to their homes. Not only were people’s lives and property were destroyed, the region’s whole economy was devastated by the terrorists. Fruit orchards went to waste because people were too afraid to work in the fields, and local businesses suffered immensely because tourism vanished. Over 2,000 innocent people, including many women and children, were killed and thousands were disabled and wounded in indiscriminate shelling and firing by security forces and the militants. As a result of the barbaric actions of Fazlullah and his followers, the centuries-old soft image of Swat and its inhabitants, based on its rich heritage dating back to its Buddhist and Swat-state eras, was lost forever. Did the government consider all this when it chose to capitulate to the extremists? What the people of Swat wanted was for the government to ensure that those behind all these murders and mayhem are held accountable for their crimes.

This brutality and carnage will not be forgotten easily by the people of Swat. It has taken its toll not just in physical terms but also on the mental wellbeing of the people of the area whose minds have been scarred. The mental health of women and children in particularly has been damaged by the actions of the militants and the incessant violence that they indulged in.

It is abominable that the government is actually now going to declare a general amnesty for Fazullah and his men, people who are directly responsible for all these deaths and atrocities that were inflicted on the people of Swat in the last two years. In this instance I would like to quote from one of this newspaper’s recent editorials following the so-called peace deal. “Fazlullah’s numerous acts of violence, his attempts to stifle learning and the way in which he targeted the most vulnerable citizens, show that he indeed cares nothing for Islam – a religion that advocates kindness for the oppressed, emphasises the significance of learning and lays down rules of respect for women, for minorities and even for enemies…. It seems obvious the ignorant forces of Fazlullah seek only power and are willing to use any means to obtain this.” This is precisely what the people of Swat think of Fazlullah and his men, but for obvious reasons were not able to articulate or demonstrate in public.

And what is the end result now? What is one to make of this deal? That Fazlullah has emerged victorious. And that both the federal and provincial governments are taking credit for the promulgation of Sharia in Swat. As for the people, they see this as nothing but an abject surrender to the forces of obscurantism and darkness, a surrender which presents a bleak future for the people of the area.

Sufi Mohammed is now the officially-sanctioned saviour of the people, but what about the people themselves? They have lost everything and gained nothing. And I say this because the deal gives them nothing in terms of holding accountable all those who killed, butchered and slaughtered hundreds of Swatis. Who will heal their bleeding hearts and souls? Certainly not this agreement.

The fear is that the militants will not remain confined to Malakand but will demand the same deal in the settled areas of the NWFP and in FATA as well. And they will use the same tactics and brutal force against the security forces and the people as they did in Swat. What will our politicians do then? Will they bow before them again? Or will they exercise the state’s authority? It shouldn’t take too long to wonder what the likely option will be, keeping in mind the Swat experience.

The people of Swat ask why the state is silent, rather than ensuring their rights, and why it treats those who are murderers and criminals and those who took up arms against the state as born-again heroes. They ask why this is done. What message is sent to those who abide by the law and want to have nothing to do with these militants and born-again heroes?

The people of Swat also say that financial compensation as is being announced by the government will not help heal the wounds. But what will is an independent high-level judicial probe into what happened in Swat, followed by accountability of those involved in the killings and violence. This is what the agreement should really be providing them – not the space and the legitimacy to the militants which is what they think has happened.

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Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl](BBC NEWS | South Asia | Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl (iv))

*MONDAY 2 FEBRUARY: SCHOOL CLOSED ON TALEBAN ORDERS
*

I am upset because the schools are still closed here in Swat.

Our school was supposed to open today. On waking up I realised the school was still closed and that was very upsetting. In the past we used to enjoy ourselves on school closure. But this is not the case this time because I am afraid that the school may not reopen at all on the orders of the Taleban.

My father told me that following the closure of private girls’ schools, private schools for boys had decided not to open until 8 February. In this regard notices have appeared outside the schools saying that they will reopen on 9 February. My father said that because no such notices have been displayed outside girls’ schools, that meant they would not be re-opening.

*SATURDAY 31 JANUARY: WHO WILL AVENGE THOSE KILLED?
*
On our way back to Peshawar from Bannu I received a call from my friend.

She was very scared and told me that the situation in Swat was getting worse and I should not come back. She told me that the military operation has intensified and 37 people have been killed only today in the shelling.

We arrived in Peshawar in the evening and were very tired. I switched on the TV and there was a report on Swat. The channel was showing empty-handed people migrating on foot from Swat.

I switched the channel and a woman was saying “we will avenge the murder of Benazir Bhutto”. I asked my father who would avenge the deaths of hundreds of people of Swat.

*SATURDAY 24 JANUARY: ‘MAKING A GRAVE’
*
The only good thing that has come out of the war in Swat is that our father has taken us away from Mingora (the largest city in the Swat valley) to many other cities. We arrived in Peshawar from Islamabad yesterday. In Peshawar we had tea at one of our relative’s houses before travelling to Bannu.

My five-year-old brother was playing on the lawn. When my father asked him what he was playing, he replied ‘I am making a grave’.

Later we went to a bus stand to travel to Bannu. The wagon was old and the driver was using his horn excessively. On our way the vehicle hit a pot-hole - and at the same time the horn started blowing - waking up my 10-year-old brother.

He was very scared and asked our mother: ‘Was it a bomb blast?’

On arrival in Bannu, we found my father’s friend waiting for us. He is also a Pashtun but his family spoke a Bannu dialect so we could not understand him clearly.

We went to the bazaar and then to the park. Here women have to wear a veil - called a shuttle veil - whenever they leave their homes. My mother also wore one but I refused to wear one on the grounds that I found it difficult to walk with it on.

Compared with Swat, there is relative peace in Bannu. Our hosts told us that there was a Taleban presence was in the area but there was not as much unrest as in Swat. They said that the Taleban had threatened to close down the schools, but they were still open.

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**Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl
**](BBC NEWS | South Asia | Diary of a Pakistani schoolgirl (v))

*THURSDAY 19 FEBRUARY: PEACE NOT WAR
*
My father prepared breakfast today because my mum is not feeling well. She complained to my father, asking why did he tell her about the journalist’s death? I told my brothers that we will not talk of war but peace from now on. We received the information from our school headmistress that examinations will be held in the first week of March. I have stepped up my studies.

*WEDNESDAY 18 FEBRUARY: HOPE SMASHED
*
I went to the market today. It was crowded. People are happy about the deal. I saw a traffic jam after a long time. In the evening my father broke the news of the death of a Swat journalist (Musa Khankhel). Mom’s is not feeling well. Our hopes of peace have been smashed.

*TUESDAY 17 FEBRUARY: HUSTLE AND BUSTLE
*
Today I started preparing for the examinations because after the peace deal there is a hope that girls’ schools could reopen. My teacher did not turn up today because she went to attend an engagement.

When I entered my room I saw my two brothers playing. One had a toy helicopter while the other had a pistol made of paper. One would yell “fire” and the other would say “take position”. One of my brothers told my father he wanted to make an atomic bomb.

Maulana Sufi Mohammad is in Swat today. The media are here too. The city is witnessing a lot of rush. The city’s hustle and bustle has returned. May God help make this agreement successful. I am optimistic.

*MONDAY 16 FEBRUARY: REOPENING?
*
Today I was very happy because the government and the militants were to sign a peace deal. Today the helicopters were flying very low too. One of my cousins remarked that with the gradual return of peace the choppers were coming down too.

In the afternoon people started distributing sweets. One of my friends called me to greet me. She said she hopes she could go out of her home now because she was imprisoned in her room for the last several months. We were also happy hoping the girls’ schools might open now.

*SUNDAY 15 FEBRUARY: DON’T BE SCARED
*
Some guests from our village and Peshawar came today. When we were having lunch, firing started outside. I had never heard such firing. We got scared, thought that the Taleban had arrived. I ran towards my father who consoled me by telling me ‘Don’t be scared - this is firing for peace’.

He told me that he read in the newspaper that the government and the militants are to sign a peace deal tomorrow and he firing is in jubilation. Later, during the night when the Taleban announced the peace deal on their FM station, another spell of more stronger firing started. People believe more in what the militants say rather then the government.

When we heard the announcement, first my mother and then father started crying. My two younger brothers had tears in their eyes too.

*FRIDAY 13 FEBRUARY: FAZLULLAH CRYING
*
Today the weather is good. It rained a lot and when it rains my valley looks more beautiful. As I got up in the morning, my mother told me about the murder of a rickshaw driver and a night watchman. Life is getting worse with the passage of each day.

Hundreds of people are arriving daily in Mingora from surrounding areas while residents of this city are moving to other areas. The rich have moved out of Swat while the poor have no place but to stay here.

We asked our cousin on the telephone to take us around the city in this splendid weather. He picked us up but when he came to the bazaar we found out that the markets were closed and the road wore a deserted look. We wanted to head towards the Qambar area but somebody told us a big procession has been brought out there.

That night Maulana Fazlullah (a pro-Taleban cleric) came on his radio and kept crying for a long time. He was demanding an end to the military operation. He asked people not to migrate but instead return to their homes.

*THURSDAY 12 FEBRUARY: HEAVY SHELLING
*
There was heavy shelling last night. Both my brothers were sleeping but I could not. I went to lie down with my father but then went to my mother, but could not sleep.

That was why I also woke up late in the morning. In the afternoon I had tuition, then my teacher for religious education came. In the evening I continued playing with my brothers amid fighting and arguments. Also played games on computer for a while.

Before the Taleban imposed restrictions on the cable network, I used to watch the Star Plus TV channel and my favourite drama was ‘Raja Kee Aye Gee Barat’ (My dream boy will come to marry me).

Today is Thursday and I am scared because people say that most suicide attacks take place either on Friday mornings or on Friday evenings. They also say that the reason behind this is is because the suicide attacker thinks that Friday has a special importance in Islam and carrying out such attacks on this day will please God more.

*WEDNESDAY 11 FEBRUARY: EXPLOSION WARNINGS
*
I was scared the whole day and also bored. We do not have a TV set now. There was a burglary in our house while we were away in Mingora for 20 days.

Earlier such incidents did not happen, but they have become rampant since the security situation in Mingora deteriorated so rapidly. Thank God there was no cash or gold in the house. My bracelet and anklet were also missing but I later found them. Maybe the burglar thought of them as gold ornaments but later found out they were artificial.

Maulana Fazlullah in a speech last night on his FM channel said that a recent attack on a police station in Mingora (the largest town in the Swat valley) was akin to a pressure cooker blast. He said that the next attack would resemble a cauldron exploding and after that a blast the size of a tanker exploding would take place.

At night my father updated us on the situation of Swat. These days we frequently use words like ‘army’, ‘Taleban’, ‘rocket’, ‘artillery shelling’, ‘Maulana Fazlullah’, ‘Muslim Khan’ (a militant leader), ‘police’, ‘helicopter’, ‘dead’ and ‘injured’.

*MONDAY 9 FEBRUARY: PRECARIOUS
*
Boys’ schools in Swat have reopened and the Taleban have lifted restrictions on girls’ primary education - therefore they are also attending schools. In our school there is co-education until primary level.

My younger brother told us that out of 49 students only six attended his school including a girl. In my school, only a total of 70 pupils attended out of 700 students who are enrolled.

Today the maid came. She normally comes once a week to wash our clothes.

She comes from Attock district but she has been living in this area for years now. She told us that the situation in Swat has become “very precarious” and that her husband has told her to go back to Attock.

People do not leave their homeland on their own free will - only poverty or a lover usually makes you leave so rapidly.

*SUNDAY 8 FEBRUARY: SCHOOL MEMORIES
*
I am sad watching my uniform, school bag and geometry box.

I felt hurt on opening my wardrobe and seeing my uniform, school bag and geometry box. Boys’ schools are opening tomorrow. But the Taleban have banned girls’ education.

The memories of my school flashed before me, especially the arguments among the girls.

My brother’s school is also reopening and he has not done his homework. He is worried and does not want to go to school. My mother mentioned a curfew tomorrow and my brother asked her if it was really going to be imposed. When my mother replied in the affirmative he started dancing with joy.

*SATURDAY 7 FEBRUARY: EERIE SILENCE
*
My brother and myself left for Mingora in the afternoon. My mother had already gone there. I was happy and scared at the same time at the thought of going back after 20 days. Before entering Mingora, there was an eerie silence in Qambar.

There was no one else besides people with long hair and beards. From their appearance they looked like Taleban. I saw some houses damaged due to shelling.

The streets of Mingora were thin. We went to supermarket to buy a gift for our mother but it was closed, whereas earlier it used to remain open till late. Many other shops were also closed. We had not informed our mother about our plans to go back to Mingora because we wanted to surprise her. As we entered the house she was quite surprised.

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Re: The Swat Crisis - News, Articles, Opinions

Clutching at straws](http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/Dawn%20Content%20Library/dawn/news/pakistan/nwfp/clutching-at-straws-hs)

*By Shaheen Sardar Ali *

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/95f439804d4e3d9ca0f8ea3cf1cde112/SWAT-608.jpg?MOD=AJPERES

They say the guns have fallen silent, there is a lull in the frenzied strafing. We hear no more schools will be torched, bombed and looted; the dreaded screeching ambulance sirens carrying the dead and dying will not haunt us anymore.

Caravans of shocked, miserable people, hopelessness writ large on their helpless faces will not ply their way through the meandering roads and mountains paths carrying little else but their threadbare clothes and heavy hearts. As news spread that a peace accord was in place, the electronic media beamed out images of tormented people heaving a sigh of relief.

It was as if a ray of hope had appeared in an unexpected minute crevice in the darkness of their lives … yes, yes, they shouted into the television cameras, we want peace, we want the Sharia, now there will be peace, our children will go to school, our markets will open and flourish and we will go back to our homes and lives.

Parallel to the footage of an apparently elated people began the endless coverage of the so-called peace caravan of Sufi Mohammad winding up his ‘protest camp’ in Timergara and setting off towards Swat to plead with his son-in-law to declare peace in the valley in return for a third attempt in 15 years at promulgating the Sharia in the region. Riding in state-of-the-art vehicles accompanied by heavy contingents of armed guards and supporters, Sufi Mohammad arrived in Mingora to a hero’s welcome.

Forgotten were the 10,000 young men who, under his command, had marched to their deaths in Afghanistan in 2001; lost too was the wrath of the families of these young men and from which this ‘hero’ had to seek ‘protective custody’ from the government.

Forgotten was the reality that at this very moment, a nizam-i-adl regulation is on the statute books and has been for many years. Forgotten is the fact that the constitution of Pakistan declares that no law that is against the Quran and Sunnah shall be made or implemented in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Forgotten, too, is that constitutional body called the Council of Islamic Ideology tasked with vetting every law for its ‘Islamic-ness’ and that except for the riba-related laws that were declared un-Islamic some years ago, it did not find much in the existing legal texts of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan that conflicted with the Sharia.

But what does this third-time nizam-i-adl mean for the people of this besieged valley, the province and indeed Pakistan and beyond. To begin with, it has raised a number of critical questions. As a student of law I would ask: who are ‘the parties’ to this ceasefire; is it the Government of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan through the provincial government and Sufi Mohammad? If so, why are federal government functionaries adamant in describing this as a peace accord between the provincial government and Sufi Mohammad?

Words alone will not distance the federal government from a deal with non-state actors on Pakistani territory. At the end of the day, the buck stops with the federal government. Hoping that these Pakhtuns in the back of beyond can take all the ‘blame’ will simply not work. We cannot have our cake and eat it; we either have an honest peace accord and give it our best or we don’t. Delaying tactics in signing the Nizam-i-Adl

Regulation 2009 will not absolve the federal government. It will only make matters worse. And finally, invoking Article 247 of the constitution to promulgate an ordinance means that the federal government has taken over lawmaking in the Malakand region and henceforth stands responsible for legislation enacted via this particular article.

Conversely, the provincial government, too, is trying to play it safe by pretending to be as absent from the scene as possible. To begin with, I wonder if its legal advisers thought of going down the route of provincial lawmaking rather than invoking Article 247 of the constitution. Is the provincial assembly unable to legislate for Malakand since the striking down of the Pata Regulation by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional and the extension of regular administrative structures? If so, then the nizam-i-adl of 2009 could be adopted by the legislature in no time and receive the assent of the NWFP governor. Representatives of the assembly would debate it and its proponents speak of it thus bringing these non-state shadowy actors into mainstream public life for all to see.

One does sympathise with the discomfort of the ANP-led government at being seen in the company of Sufi Mohammad who has emerged as a powerful non-state actor in ascendancy over the state and its institutions. Yet, could there not have been ground gained, albeit minimal, by depicting some sort of symbolic governmental and political presence when Swat was overtaken by Sufi Mohammad and his supporters?

Acts of symbolism do matter and it seems that our university-educated, liberal, democratic, elected representatives have not been able to apply the lessons of their political science books into practice whereas the other side clearly has. Why else would they kidnap a senior representative of the state, the DCO Swat along with his symbols of authority i.e. his various bodyguards and vehicles, to make a point as to who holds the reins of power in the valley?

One wonders too why precious days were lost in the days that followed the fragile peace accord. Non-state actors have a lot to lose if the writ of the state of Pakistan is re-established. They have killed, maimed, abused and destroyed homes and fields especially of people who were landowners and higher up in the societal hierarchy. Why would they disarm and lay themselves open to revenge. They have tasted power, wealth and authority. The state and elected representatives have and are pandering to their whims in a bid to gain time and space to think. Time is running out because each day that the government spends in strategising the safest way out of this imbroglio, is a day gained by the other side to consolidate their position.

While the various sides muddle their way through this tragic scenario of lost hope and humanity, the people of Swat live on the fringes of hope and despair. We clutch at straws, victims of deceit of higher powers for whom a little power is better than nothing leaving us to think: a little peace is better than nothing.

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Pakistan’s Taliban Generation](http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/articles/pakistans-taliban-generation)

Thursday 12 March 2009

*Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy
*

Three hours’ drive north of Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad, the flat highway gives way to the windy roads that weave through the Hindu Kush mountains. At the mouth of the Swat valley lies the town of Qambar. A desolate unmanned police station is the only sign that the government’s writ was once established here.

Further down the road, a middle school for girls is reduced to rubble. There, I meet two nine-year-olds, Ruksar and Zarlash, who want to tell me what happened.

‘It’s completely unfair, our school was destroyed,’ says Zarlash, who believes that she may never fulfill her dream of becoming a doctor.

Both girls lie awake at night listening to mortars fly overhead. Since the Taliban started patrolling their neighborhood, the girls have been forbidden by their parents from going out. They feel trapped.

‘The Taliban walk around with their faces covered. They terrorise the neighborhoods and force us to wear burqas. We are so afraid,’ says Ruksar.

Their father Fazal, an English teacher, is worried about their future. ‘All of the girls in the region are having great injustices done to them. They had big dreams, their education was a beacon of light, now that light is being snatched from them.’

Fazal’s savings are running out because the college he taught at has been closed for months. ‘You’ll find thousands of children in this region who cannot continue their education and will continue to sit at home, unaware of what’s happening in the world around them,’ he tells me.

The valley of Swat in the north of Pakistan was once home to the country’s only ski resort. When the Taliban arrived in 2007, they destroyed it. It was seen as a sign of Pakistan’s ‘western’ past; a place where men and women interacted with each other. That was the first step of their brutal campaign.

Swat, once considered the Switzerland of the East, where Pakistanis spent idyllic summers and winters, is being slowly and systematically destroyed.

In the past two years, the Taliban have blown up over 200 girls’ schools, beheaded 50 government officials, bombed countless police checkpoints, executed women they deemed immoral, publicly lashed those who disobeyed them and cut up the bodies of people they thought were spies, leaving them in the centre of the valley for the residents to see.

By some estimates, the Taliban control more than 70 per cent of the valley. When the Pakistani army began its campaign against the militants in the lawless tribal areas near the Afghan border, many of the militants fled to other areas within the country. Some arrived in Swat and were given refuge by extremist preachers who encouraged the militants to implement their fundamentalist ideology.

Now by some estimates there are as many as 4000 well armed Taliban fighters operating in the valley. What is most frightening about this development is that Swat is not part of Pakistan’s tribal areas, long considered out of the grasp of the government; it is very much part of Pakistan proper.

Four Pakistani army brigades, up to 16,000 soldiers, are deployed in this 200 mile long valley. They are not enough to stop the Taliban. Over 1500 people have been killed here and almost 400,000 have fled their homes in the last 18 months. The army is fighting an enemy that blends in with the locals during the day and attacks at night.

Three weeks after I left, the Pakistani government signed a peace deal with the Taliban. Shariah law now prevails over the valley. Women are forbidden from working, girls colleges are still closed and - more importantly - the Taliban now have a new safe haven from where they can strike into the heart of Pakistan.

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How security forces got the message loud and clear from man behind ‘Radio Taleban’

Mohammed Ali is one of the masterminds of the Taleban campaign that has brought the security forces in the Swat Valley to their knees.

On the FM radio system that he helped to set up in Swat to spread the message of the Taleban, he announced the names of people who deserved to die, sometimes adding the names of their children and the schools they attended. He is also regarded as the main strategist behind a two-year suicide bombing campaign against government buildings, military installations, schools and individuals that forced the Government to accept a Taleban-administered mini-state where Sharia is applied.

Using the name Nadar, which means fearless, he told radio listeners: “I like the sound of the death rattle when army people are slaughtered. I want to hear that every day.”

Now in a disguised and guarded safehouse in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, close to the Afghanistan border, he sits in front of me. It is the first time that he has left the Swat region, which was once a holiday resort, for months.

“We follow the law of Islam. The Army burnt 5,551 copies of the Holy Koran. Innocent boys and girls were killed so it does not seem wrong for us to kill someone in that way,” he said. “We are struggling for sharia. We will go to jihad and it will remain to the end of time if they deny us.

“In Pakistan we are struggling to achieve what we have been told we should achieve, and that is sharia through the land. We have relations with our brothers in Afghanistan because they want what we want,” he added.

The fractured grip on power that Islamabad has on Pakistan is causing concern in Britain, the US and India.

Swat, which is 100 miles north of the capital, may never be the same again and the Taleban may not be contained easily there. The elders commanded by Mohammed Ali oversee an organised and brutal militia. Their latest propaganda videos show recruits training at camps in the mountains, where they are taught unarmed fighting techniques, shooting and suicide bomb preparation.

Pakistan denied the existence of the camps but the Taleban said that the videos were filmed only a few weeks ago. A large part of the film is dedicated to suicide bombing. The pictures show young men, grinning with pleasure as their hooded colleagues hug them and congratulate them on their decision to blow themselves up for the cause.

The men are shown strapping on suicide vests or checking cars and vans packed with explosives. The attacks and the aftermath are filmed - the carnage, bodies and grieving relatives are depicted as victories.

In Pakistan the bomb attacks are an almost daily occurrence and have been effective enough in Swat to secure the Taleban a new haven in the heart of Pakistan.

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Taliban move into new Buner areas
By Abdur Rahman Abid
Saturday, 11 Apr, 2009 | 02:27 AM PST BUNER,

April 10: Instead of pulling out of Buner as they had announced on Thursday, the Taliban of Swat moved on Friday to consolidate their hold and took control of new areas, including the shrine of Sufi saint Pir Baba. Security forces offered no resistance.

“They have taken control of vast areas in Buner. They are freely moving around while police and other law-enforcement personnel remain confined to their posts,” said a man who lives near the shrine of Pir Baba. He said that the militants had earlier announced that they would leave after holding a march in various areas.

Local people said that the militants, who occupied houses of influential people organising an anti-Taliban lashkar, were still patrolling the road leading to Daggar, the district headquarters.

The tribal elderswhose houses have been occupied included Syed Ahmed Khan, his cousins Mah Muneer Khan and Afsar Khan, the nazim of the Gadezai union council.

Militants set on fire TV sets, pictures and paintings and audio and video cassettes before the Friday prayers. They locked the shrine, stopping followers of Pir Baba from visiting the place. They also delivered sermons in village mosques. “We have been asked by our seniors not to interfere with the Taliban,” said an officer of the Pir Baba police station. He said that the Taliban had advanced weapons, some of which he had “never seen before”.

He said that so far they had not harmed anyone. “Their prime targets have already fled.” A spokesman for militants in Sultanwas announced that people who had fled the area should return to their homes, but said those who had taken up arms against them would not be spared.

Local people said that the militants had met hundreds of local people, especially the youths, who remained with them the whole day.

The Taliban were also seen patrolling areas near Bhai Killey and Ghazikhanay and were using vehicles they had captured.

An official at the commissioner’s office in Saidu Sharif said on late Thursday night after talks with a peace mission that Taliban had agreed to leave Buner.

However, sources privy to the talks between the militants, administration officials and a local jirga headed by Maulana Waliullah Kalbalgrami, said that no agreement had been reached. He said they had been allowed to “go anywhere” in Buner they wanted to.

He said that the militants controlling the Sultanwas village had been told to occupy residences of the people who were part of the anti-Taliban lashkar.

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**Buner bagged
**](The News International: Latest News Breaking, World, Entertainment, Royal News)
Sunday, April 12, 2009

Buner, with a population of slightly over half-a-million according to the 1998 census, has fallen without a fight. Another piece of Pakistan, 1865 square kilometres to be precise, has disappeared into the maw of the Taliban. Local people, peaceful and no trouble to anybody, were unprepared for the influx of heavily armed men who came over the border from Swat. They put up what resistance they could but they were up against a battle-hardened and determined enemy, they had no support from the federal or provincial government and it was, in military terms, a walk-over for the Taliban. Instead of pulling out of Buner as they had announced on Thursday, the Taliban of Swat moved on Friday to consolidate their hold and took control of new areas, including the shrine of Sufi saint Pir Baba, which they are reported to have locked. The security forces offered no resistance. The houses of tribal elders have been occupied, those who organised the lashkar to resist the invasion are being threatened and targeted; pictures, videos and music CD’s have been looted from houses and burned and the road to the district HQ at Daggar is today controlled by the militants. There will be blustering denials to the contrary but the inescapable reality is that another domino has toppled and the Taliban are a step closer to Islamabad.

Maps are instructive. To the south-east of Buner is Haripur, to the east Mansehra and to the west Mardan. Haripur is the next obvious move for the Taliban once they have consolidated in Buner, perhaps via a ‘peace agreement’ that effectively cedes the territory to their control. Haripur may be a harder nut to crack, but this has not deterred them in the past and will not in the future. Mansehra and Mardan will be ‘easy’ but Abbottabad less so. They will then control the Karakoram Highway as far north as Chilas, one of our key strategic routes and the only route to China, one of our principal allies and trading partners. None of this is going to happen tomorrow and the process may take several months, but the Taliban have the upper hand and know it.

There are distinct similarities between the way in which the Taliban are nibbling away at Pakistan and the way in which the Vietcong eventually defeated the Americans. They are iconoclasts, driven by ideology and with effective charismatic leadership. They have considerable grassroots support enabling movement and concealment and are well equipped for asymmetric warfare. Powerful external backers ensure the flow of money and equipment. They are highly trained, willing to accept disproportionate casualties and have no problem of recruitment and retention. They are up against a weak and vacillating government, riddled with corruption, and bereft of the kind of vision that would countervail them physically or intellectually. The forces ranged against them are trained and equipped for the wrong war and have elements which are sympathetic to the opposition; rendering effective and consistent military operations at best weak and at worst, failing. The Americans lost in Vietnam because they consistently underestimated the Vietcong, were outfought on the battlefield and had lost the ‘hearts and minds’ fight before battle was even joined. They backed a corrupt and venal regime and eventually retreated, beaten by what they always saw as a raggle-taggle of gooks. The Taliban know what they want and how to get it. The fall of Buner may seem relatively inconsequential, but when the dots are joined up – and they are joining fast – the picture that emerges is of a state that has already surrendered.

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Live with Talat with interviews from Buner:

Live With Talat - 10 April 2009 | PakPoint Network |

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March of the Taliban

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/b6a640804dbb722ab62bf734e9bb6086/talibanBunerAP2_608x325.jpg?MOD=AJPERES

Taliban activists are seen at an entrance of the shrine of the famous saint Pir Baba adjacent to a mosque, which was closed by Taliban after taking it over in Buner. —AP *

ON Saturday, March 11, a convoy of 10 double-cabin four-wheel drive pick-up trucks loaded with Taliban armed with every description of portable weapons – Kalashnikovs, rocket launchers, heavy machine guns – drove from Daggar the headquarters of Buner district to the villages of Sohawa and Dagai in Buner.

It entered Swabi district at Jhanda village, drove through the district headquarter (the town of Swabi), drove on to the motorway, exited at Mardan, drove through the cantonment of Mardan and, showing their weapons for all to see, went on towards Malakand.

In doing the above, the Taliban broke many laws of the state of Pakistan not least those that prohibit the possession of heavy weapons; showing weapons publicly and so on. They drove through a district HQ of a district they have not yet occupied (but are well on the way sooner rather than later, given the non-governance being exhibited by the ANP non-government of the Frontier); on the federally policed motorway; through an army cantonment – as a matter of fact right past the Punjab Regimental Centre’s shopping plaza containing the usual bakery and pastry-shop run by serving soldiers – and thence through the rest of the crowded city of Mardan which is also the home of the chief minister of the province.

Must have struck the fear of God into the populace of the villages/cities/ towns/cantonments they drove through, these ferocious men who so recently humbled the great Pakistan Army! So what am I going on about, talking of the laws of the state? What state? What laws? Much shame should adhere to the various actors, or shall we call them jokers, who are prancing about on the national stage striking nonsensical attitudes and mouthing pitiable platitudes.

Just as one example, the very same ‘leaders’ of the ANP who just eight days ago admitted on TV that the flogging of poor Chand Bibi had actually happened but that it happened before they signed the (craven) deal with the Taliban, are now saying the flogging never happened! Look at Muslim Khan, the fiery spokesman of the Taliban in Swat who said, again on TV, that the woman was lucky to have got away with a beating – that she should have been stoned to death. He now says there was no beating at all.

As another, the COAS, Gen Ashfaq Kayani says several weeks after the army handed Swat over to the Taliban that it was ready to face any threat, internal or external! Can you even believe any of this? What is happening to this country of ours; how long will we live in denial; when will we realise that if we don’t act now it will all be over; that the Taliban will simply take over the state using the shock and awe that comes from killing wantonly and cruelly.

Let’s go back to the most recent ‘flag march’ the Taliban carried out from Buner to Mardan via Swabi and see its effects already furthering the Taliban’s agenda. Please go to Buner Valley and see what mayhem they are creating there, recruiting jobless youths by encouraging them to ‘take-over’ their respective areas and neighbourhoods. What, pray, would the loquacious Mian Iftikhar, the Frontier’s information minister, say about this latest in a series of coming conquests for the Taliban?

Does he know that Mansehra and Haripur are next on the hit list and that once in Mansehra the Taliban are but a few hours’ drive from the Karakoram Highway? Does someone in the federal non-government know that once they tie up with the Sunni Chilasis who hate the Shia Gilgitis with a passion, there will be havoc of a very special kind in our Northern Areas?

Is Islamabad the Beautiful cognisant of the fact that our great and good friend, China, is already up to here with the Taliban and others of their ilk, who have forever interfered in their restive province of Xinjiang. This interference goes back to the early 1980s when the highway opened to public traffic and I found myself in the company of two American friends at the Chinese customs post which was then located just below the Khunjerab Pass on the Chinese side.

We noticed that our Pakistani companions, most of them bearded young men, were being searched most closely and out came copies of the Quran from their baggage which the Chinese confiscated saying there were enough copies in China. It is too well known to repeat again the charge the Chinese have oft laid at our door that Chinese citizens are trained in guerrilla training camps in the Frontier.

So, has our FO, ‘unaware’ that it usually is about matters that concern the country that it supposedly serves, taken stock of how the Chinese might react to the march of the Taliban? How will they do when they see that the Taliban are advancing, unchecked, to threaten the one land link China has with Pakistan, and through it with the rest of the world, not forgetting Gwadar? And that once there, given the fact that they face no real opposition from the great Pakistan Army, it is but a day’s drive to the Chinese border itself?

Have our Napoleons and Guderians and Rommels given any thought to any of the above? Where are they and our hopelessly inadequate government in Islamabad the Beautiful in all of this? Have they even begun to realise the gravity of the situation our country is faced with? That if they don’t act fast the Taliban will pick up enough recruits to seriously threaten them and their ill-led and poorly motivated troops? Whilst they might well think that they are safe in their palatial villas guarded night and day by weapons-toting guards and barricades and tens of servants, all it will take is one beheaded body per cantonment every second day for their guards to throw in the towel.

On the ‘bloody civilian’ side, Shah Mehmood Qureshi has been talking down to the Indians most recently in words that are a lot of hot air and bluster. On Swat: ‘The whole of Swat is neither under Taliban control nor is being attacked by them’! On the ISI: ‘Without ISI’s help you (India?!) could not have apprehended the 700 or so Al Qaeda operatives’. As to his first statement the minister obviously needs to read the papers/see TV. For the second I can only say that he is mightily ignorant if he means the 700 as part of those that Musharraf sold to the Americans for $5000 each. Of whom at least 90 per cent have been proved to be innocent by none other than their jailors in Guantanamo. So have a heart, minister.

There is a great furore going on in our self-righteous media about how Pakistan will not accept aid under any conditionality. In the first place it will starve, which isn’t a bad idea at all considering that our brass hats will come crashing down to reality; in the second, let’s see if we have a country by then!

In the meantime, could the non-government of the ANP please resign for its acts of omission and commission re: Swat and Buner.

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Two women killed in Mardan

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/415ef6804dc52c3bb201ff938044cd95/mar+copy.jpg?MOD=AJPERES

MARDAN: A former women councillor and a woman employee of an NGO were killed in separate incidents here on Thursday.

According to sources, an explosion caused by a home-made bomb planted in the office of the National Rural Support Programme (NRSP) in the Hattian village killed Mumtaz Begum.

The NGO’s office was located in building belonging to a former MPA of the Awami National Party.

Local Taliban leader Habibur Rehman claimed responsibility for the attack. He accused NGOs of propagating obscenity and vulgarity and threatened further attacks.

In the other incident, armed men gunned down Shaheen Bibi, a former councillor of the Union Council Gujjar Garhi.

A number of terrorist attacks have taken place in Hattian, Shergarh, Lund Khwar and Takhtbai areas of Mardan in recent days and a number of girl schools, police stations, security posts, music centres and cellphone towers have been targeted.

Meanwhile, three employees of the Oil and Gas Development Company Limited (OGDCL) were kidnapped in Kohat.

Police said that armed men intercepted an OGDCL vehicle near a camp set up by the company for soil testing and whisked the three away to the nearby mountains.

The kidnappers left behind their van and drove away in the company vehicle which was later found abandoned near the Nakband village. Those kidnapped were identified as Mohammad Arif, Qamar Hasnain Naqvi and their driver Mohammad Khan.

Police mounted a search but by that time the kidnappers had reportedly crossed over into the tribal areas.

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Taliban execute man, woman in Hangu
*
By Abdul Sami Paracha
Friday, 17 Apr, 2009 | 08:39 PM PST | *

http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/1da56b804dc72d5082ade3842d829281/taliban_325.jpg?MOD=AJPERES

KOHAT: Local Taliban executed a man and a woman on charges of having illicit relations in Hangu district near the border of Orakzai Agency a few days back.

The footage, made available to Dawn on Friday, shows the Taliban shooting the man aged around 40 and a woman, about 45 years, at an open space in the presence of their relatives.

**The woman is heard appealing to the Taliban, ‘Have mercy on me, please have mercy; the charges against me are false and no man has ever touched her’.
**

The Taliban first shoot the woman by firing two bullets in her chest and later open a burst of Kalashnikov fire at both the woman and the man. But the woman is still seen breathing, and the Taliban start yelling that she is alive and issuing orders to ‘kill her, kill her’.

Sources said that the Taliban had asked the relatives of the woman and the man to present the two before them for questioning at a specified place. The relatives brought both of them to the Taliban, who killed them in cold blood.

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Children of the Taliban

The documentary can be seen at the link, well worth seeing. below is the reporter talking about it.

The city of Peshawar is on high alert. The Taliban are closing in, regularly attacking police convoys, kidnapping diplomats, and shooting foreigners. The fighting across this volatile region has driven thousands of families from their homes and many have found shelter in Peshawar.

Correspondent Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy is traveling across her fractured homeland to investigate the rising popularity of a new Pakistani branch of the Taliban, now threatening the major cities, blowing up girls’ schools and declaring war on the Pakistani state.

Her journey begins at a rehabilitation center in Peshawar, where she talks with many young victims caught in the crossfire of this war.

“We saw the dead body of a policeman tied to a pole,” an articulate young girl named Qainat tells the reporter quietly. “His head had been chopped off. It was hanging between his legs. There was a note saying that if anyone moved the dead body, they would share its fate.”

Before the Taliban took control of Qainat’s village, the women in her family attended university and worked. But now the Taliban has banned girls from going to school.

Qainat is from Swat, a 100-mile-long valley in the north of Pakistan, three hours drive from Peshawar. Until recently, Swat was known as the Switzerland of the east, and had a thriving tourist industry.

Two years ago, hundreds of Taliban fighters moved into the valley from the adjoining tribal areas, when the Pakistani Army drove them out.

Driving through the streets of Swat filming surreptitiously, Obaid-Chinoy sees Swati women wearing the burqa. This never used to be the case.

The Taliban often use radio broadcasts to drive home their message.

In one typical address, a preacher proclaims:

“Sharia Law is our right, and we will exercise this right whatever happens. We will make ourselves suicide bombers! I swear to God if our leader orders me, I will sacrifice myself… and blow myself up in the middle of our enemies.“

The Taliban have destroyed more than 200 government schools in Swat since they took control of the region. Walking through the rubble of a school that once taught 400 girls, the reporter comes across two nine-year-old girls who used to study there.

“Why did you like school?” she asks one of them.

“Because education is like a ray of light and I want that light,” she replies.

When the sound of mortar fire cuts the conversation short, the film crew leaves quickly, passing through the main square. Locals have renamed it “Khooni Chowk” (“bloody square”) for all the public beheadings the Taliban now carry out there.

Several weeks after FRONTLINE/World filmed in Swat, the Pakistani government signed a peace deal with the Taliban, allowing the imposition of a brutal brand of Shania Law on a million people across the valley.

It’s a significant deal, reports Obaid-Chinoy. Swat lies outside the tribal area, showing that Taliban influence is growing, and the militants now have a new safe haven.

In Taliban strongholds near the Afghan border, they have been running their own schools for years, targeting poor families and often providing food and shelter.

One Swat teenager explains how he joined the Taliban a year ago, when he was 13. First it was the sermons at the mosque, then being recruited to a madrassa, and finally spending months in military training.

“They teach us to use a machine gun, Kalashnikov…Then they teach us how to do a suicide attack,” he tells our reporter.

Despite the Swat peace deal, the Pakistan Army has been battling the Taliban for several months, deep inside the tribal belt.

In Bajaur, just 10 miles from the Afghan border, flattened buildings are all that remain of this former trading hub, once home to 7,000 people.

The Army claims it destroyed the town because it was the only way to free it from militants. This hard line approach has left hundreds of thousands of refugees, many winding up in makeshift camps on the edge of the Tribal belt.

It’s the largest internal displacement Pakistan has ever seen, Obaid-Chinoy reports. Almost a million people have been forced to leave their homes.

Visiting one such camp in Peshawar, we meet two young men among the 15,000 children displaced there. Wasifullah and Abdurrahman are best friends, but they have different ideas of who is to blame for this war. Both boys fled their village when the Pakistani Army began bombing. Their district was also targeted by American missile strikes. In one of those strikes, Wasifullah’s 12-year-old cousin was killed.

“We brought his remains home in bags,” he explains with little expression. “We could only find his legs so we buried them in our village.”

There have been more than 30 U.S. missile strikes in the tribal areas in the last year. They target Taliban and Al Qaeda leaders, but civilians are often killed as well. It’s an easy recruiting tool for the Taliban, and Wasifullah is eager to sign up.

But his best friend Abdurrahman blames Al Qaeda for the destruction of their village. He would prefer to become a captain in the Pakistan Army. The two friends sadly represent the fault lines in this unstable nation.

The Army has also suffered in its campaign against the Taliban. In the last five years, thousands of Pakistani soldiers have been wounded. And more than 1,500 have been killed.

Visiting some of the wounded in a local hospital, Obaid-Chinoy asks one soldier why the Taliban hate the Pakistani Army so much.

“The American policies we adopted; that’s why the Taliban are angry at the Army.
That’s why we’re suffering,” he whispers.

Meanwhile, the Taliban are growing bolder by the day, openly inviting journalists to the heart of the tribal areas for a show of strength. As a woman, Obaid-Chinoy is told she is not welcome and that she will be killed if she goes. A local cameraman sets out to film there instead.

In a village 6 hours from Peshawar, it is the first time that the new deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been filmed.

Arriving in an American Humvee his men have just captured in an attack on a NATO convoy, he tells the cameraman, “If America continues bombing the tribal areas… and martyrs innocent people…then we are compelled to attack them.” He also sends a message to Islamabad: “If the Pakistani leaders and army maintain their stance… then we will take control of Peshawar and other cities.”

This is no empty threat. The war has already arrived in the capital and Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi.

Back in Karachi, Obaid-Chinoy finds that her native city has become a new safe haven for the Taliban. She visits one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, which local police concede has become heavily infiltrated by the Taliban. Most of the children here already study at small madrassas.

After their lessons, some of the boys play cricket on a strip of wasteland close to school. One of them is Shaheed, which means “martyr.” He is 14 and one of 200 pupils at the school, most of whom come from extremely poor families.

The state education system in Pakistan has virtually collapsed, leaving more than 1.5 million children studying at schools like this one. Sitting down to be interviewed, Shaheed explains what Sharia Law has taught him about women.

“The government should forbid women and girls from wandering around outside,” he says calmly. “Just like the government banned plastic bags – no one uses them any more – we should do the same with women.”

Shaheed’s teacher defends the school, saying it promotes only peace and harmony, not terrorism, but away from the camera, he tells another story.

When asked who he thinks will win this war, his response is chilling:

“No matter how many Muslims die, we will never run out of sacrificial lambs.”

It also confirms something Shaheed said during his interview: “When I look at suicide bombers younger than me, or my age, I get so inspired by their terrific attacks.”

Leaving Karachi, the reporter tries to make contact with the Taliban leadership in the tribal areas. She wants to talk to the men who are recruiting children from these religious schools for suicide operations.

After lengthy negotiations, she meets with Qari Abdullah, who makes no attempt to hide his face.

“We never used to fight against Pakistan, because we thought the Army were Muslims,” he tells her. “But when they started bombing us, we had to do jihad against them.”

When she asks him about using young children to carry out such attacks, he replies:

“Children are tools to achieve God’s will. And whatever comes your way, you sacrifice it.” He then reveals that he recruits children as young as 5, 6, and 7 years old.

Coming to the end of her bleak journey, Obaid-Chinoy reminds us that there are 80 million children in Pakistan, many of them living in poverty. If the militants continue to expand their war and to recruit children freely, as they do now, then Pakistan may soon belong to them.

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Buner returning to normal after Taliban withdrawal

Islamabad, April 25 (IANS) The situation in Buner in Pakistan’s restive northwest that had been forcibly occupied by the Taliban, raising fears that this federal capital just 100 km away could be under threat, is fast returning to normal with the withdrawal of the militants.

Markets have reopened and people have resumed their day-to-day activities but the courts remain closed.

The Taliban, which had taken complete control of the district earlier this week, began withdrawing Friday after talks between a government representative and radical cleric Sufi Mohammad who had brokered the controversial Feb 16 Swat peace deal on imposing Sharia laws in seven districts of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) that are collectively known as the Malakand division in return for the militants laying down their arms.

Instead, the Taliban left their Swat headquarters and moved south into Buner, unleashing a reign of terror that forced people to stay indoors.

On Friday, Pakistani Army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani had served a strong warning on the Taliban, saying said the military fully backed the government in its fight against terrorism.

There were also reports that the army was preparing to go into action against the Taliban if they did not honour the peace accord.

Meanwhile, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has urged the government to convene a national conference to evolve consensus on resolving issues like countering the Taliban and other militant groups.

“The conference should not be confined to the heads of political parties inside and outside parliament. All stakeholders, including the military, judiciary…and civil society should be invited. We need everyone’s input if democracy is to function properly and deliver,” he told reporters at his country villa on the outskirts of Lahore Friday.

“We could call the conference on our own. But we thought it better that the government took the initiative and convened it,” he wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani.

The response, Sharif said, had been positive, with Gilani telephoning him Thursday.

“His response was encouraging and he assured me that he would call the meeting without delay,” Sharif said.

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Bomb kills 12 Pakistani children

Twelve children have been killed in north-western Pakistan after playing with a bomb they mistook for a toy, local officials say.

The children died after the bomb, which resembled a football, exploded on Saturday in Lower Dir district of North West Frontier Province.

The children - seven boys and five girls - were between five and 13 years old, officials say.

They found the device outside a local school as they were going home.

Officials say an investigation is under way to determine how the children got hold of the bomb.

Low Dir is part of Malakand division in North West Frontier Province.

Taleban militants there have recently agreed a peace deal with the government.

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Swat refugees nurse dreams of peace in Pakistan

http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2009-04/46521969.jpg

In Swat’s main town, Mingora, students read lessons in a school reportedly damaged by militants. Thousands of residents have fled the scenic valley, amid the Taliban violence and the loss of livelihood it has caused.

By Mark Magnier

April 27, 2009

*Thousands of Pakistanis, rich and poor, have fled the Swat Valley as Taliban militants have strengthened their hold. Some fear the rising tide of extremism bodes ill for the rest of the country.
*

Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan — The ragtag group of men rises out of a small gorge wedged between a gas station, a mosque and a community center, the sort of place you’d easily miss unless you ventured over a small garbage mound and down a dirt path obscured by trees.

Ten miles away, a woman answers the door of her luxury top-floor apartment. Through the windows, there’s a view of a park, majestic mountains and the endless blue Pakistani sky. A few feet away, her teenage daughter complains about the speed of their Internet connection.

These people at opposite ends of the social spectrum are among thousands who have fled Pakistan’s Swat Valley in recent months to seek refuge in the capital. Although they have different reasons for leaving, those who have lived through the last few years in Swat say they have experienced firsthand what passes for peace, Taliban-style, and fear the worst as militants gain more influence across the region.

A former tourist destination, the Swat Valley is now ground zero in Pakistan’s identity crisis. A move last week by the Swat militants into the adjacent Buner district, which is only 60 miles from Islamabad, rattled the country’s political establishment and foreign allies. Many here and abroad fear the rising tide of extremism in Swat could foretell changes in an overwhelmingly Muslim society that has been largely secular and open.

In February, after months of clashes, authorities in Swat agreed to a truce in which local Taliban leaders were allowed to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, throughout the picturesque valley, a move they justified as a way to achieve peace. This monththe national government approved the deal.

Alam Sher, 30, his clothes torn and his fingernails dirty, left Swat early this year with his wife, two daughters and a son and moved 100 miles south to Islamabad. Though violence was a factor, he said, the main reason was the difficulty of making ends meet.

As the Taliban’s grip intensified and violence grew, construction projects dried up. For day laborers like Sher, that meant no work. So he headed for a tent city in the hectic, unfamiliar capital.

A girls school near his ancestral home in Mingora, the main town in Swat, was bombed shortly before he left, Sher said, one of an estimated two dozen attacks he witnessed or saw the aftermath of in recent months.

“After hearing the explosions, we thought our time on Earth was finished,” Sher said. “We’ve been filled with fear.”

The Sharia agreement hasn’t brought peace, said fellow laborer Jahangir Rehan, 30, standing beside Sher on the steep trail, adding that he knew or was acquainted with at least 50 people kidnapped or beheaded by militants in Swat.

“Why are Muslims killing each other?” Rehan asked.

For Falaknaz Asfandyar, in her penthouse apartment several miles away, earning a living is not a major concern. She married into minor royalty. Her husband, Asfandyar Amirzeb, a grade-school sweetheart, was the grandson of the Wali of Swat, who ruled over the valley until 1969. Amirzeb recognized early on that the Taliban was a mortal threat to the valley he loved, she said, tears welling in her eyes.

As the militants gained strength in 2007, Amirzeb became increasingly vocal, raising Swat’s plight with Pakistan’s president, prime minister, the governor and other top officials, and chiding them for ignoring the militants’ growing power.

Amirzeb was seeking reelection to the provincial assembly at the time. The militants “have spies everywhere,” his wife said, and his protests weren’t lost on them. While traveling on a mountain road one day after former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was assassinated in December 2007, he was killed in a roadside bombing.

The rumor at the time, Asfandyar said, was that Taliban commander Maulana Qazi Fazlullah, sometimes dubbed the “Radio Mullah” for his use of FM programming to build a following, personally pushed the detonator switch. Eight people died in the explosion.

The village where his meeting was scheduled had many Taliban militants, and Asfandyar said she had urged him not to go. But he insisted.

Asfandyar says now that she believes it was only a matter of time before the Taliban killed her husband. He wasn’t one to give up, she said, and the Taliban isn’t tolerant of critics.

Over the years, she had a front row seat on the rise of the Radio Mullah and his fighters. Fazlullah started with a few supporters but was patient, tactical and ruthless, she said. He expanded his audience with his radio sermons, and solicited donations for a religious school and other charitable works. Even Asfandyar’s household contributed.

Gradually, however, his tenor changed. He became sharply critical of the U.S. and the Pakistani government. He started calling for attacks on “infidel” targets and made promises of rewards in the next life.

“That’s when the beheadings started,” she said.

Asfandyar and others say the Islamic law that Mullah Fazlullah has championed holds great appeal for many Pakistanis ill-served by their often corrupt justice system.

“I’m in favor,” said Umair Qureshi, 25, a butcher in Islamabad, half a block from the Swat refugee tents. “This is an Islamic country and there should be Sharia all over,” he said, adding that he’d never heard about beheadings and schools burned by the Taliban.

With little protection from the army or police, Swat residents became increasingly intimidated and remain that way.

“Everyone is afraid,” said Shaukat Salim, a Swat official reached by telephone. “There’s no legal system left, no security, no safety for our wives or children. We can’t cry out or have a voice because all our public representatives have run away from Swat. All we can do is try and survive.”

Others say Swat is an example of what could happen to the entire nuclear-armed nation if the government permits it.

“If this is not brought under control, Pakistan will become another country run by warlords, like Afghanistan,” said Aftab Alam, president of the Bar Assn. of Swat. “If we are abandoned by the world, it will be our disaster, and theirs.”

About 25 bridges have been damaged by the Taliban in Swat, Salim said, so a half-hour trip can take days. Hospitals are closed and what passes for healthcare is now controlled by the militants.

“My life and my family are in danger, but I accept the situation,” said Salim, who has campaigned against Taliban rule. “I’ve stayed to try and encourage change.”

The men in the tents also used to listen to the Radio Mullah, and found his discussions on religion compelling.

“At the beginning it sounded very good,” Rehan said. “Then at some point he started a holy war.”

Rehan and his friends looked uncomfortable standing on the path. Good manners here dictate you invite a stranger in for tea and sweets, especially a foreigner. But they had no sweets, no chair and live in a tent made of discarded lumber and cloth salvaged from advertising banners. The little gorge, smaller than a city block, floods when it rains, mosquitoes are rampant and the men’s wives have no place to bathe.

“In Swat, we have a real house with a toilet and running water,” Rehan said. “Now, we’re living in the mud.”

“It’s the second Switzerland of the world,” Sher said of Swat. “It’s beautiful.”

It’s a sentiment that encompasses the squalor here as well as the living room with matching yellow furniture where Asfandyar’s domestic help pours another cup of tea.

“I want peace,” Asfandyar said. “First for Swat, then for the rest of the country.”****

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Re: The Swat Crisis - News, Articles, Opinions

‘Civilians flee’ Pakistan fighting](Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera)

Breaking News, World News and Video from Al Jazeera

Lower Dir is close to the border with Afghanistan [AFP]

Thousands of people are flooding out of Lower Dir as the Pakistan army takes on Taliban fighters in the district.

Civilians were streaming out of the area due to the army’s “accurate” and “spread out” assault, a source told Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Pakistan, on Monday.

Sufi Muhammad, a religious leader who has been holding peace talks with the central government, has suspended dialogue with Islamabad as a result of the army assault.

“We are suspending talks with the government until the military operation in Dir is halted,” Aamir Izat, a spokesman for Muhammad, said on Monday.

Hyder said that Monday’s assault is being described by the army as a “retaliatory strike” rather than an operation.

“The military surprised everybody by launching a major assault using paramilitary forces backed by helicopter gunships,” he said.

"We are told that attacks by the military have taken out a considerable chunk of the leadership that was operational in Dir.

“This was an area where they [the Taliban] had quietly spread and while they were flexing their muscle in another area, Buner, they had taken virtual control of certain districts in Lower Dir.”

Sharia deal

The Pakistani miltary says it has killed at least 46 suspected Taliban fighters in air and ground operations in Lower Dir since Sunday.

The district, which lies in the Malakand division of the North-West Frontier province is close to the border with Afghanistan.

“Lal Qila in Lower Dir has been fully secured after the successful operation by the Frontier Corps against the miscreants today,” the military said.

The military action in Lower Dir comes weeks after the government allowed the Taliban to implement their interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) in the neighbouring Swat valley, after talks brokered by Muhammad.

Prior to Muhammad’s move on Monday to suspend negotiations with Islamabad, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari said that the government would fulfil its pledge to allow the establishment of Islamic courts in the northwest of the country.

But he said that the government, which allowed sharia in Swat in an attempt to limit violent activity in the region, would not permit the fighters to spread their area of influence.

In recent days, fighters from Swat began entering another district, Buner, which lies just 100km from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

Later reports suggested that the fighters had begun to pull out after military action was threatened.

Hyder reported on Sunday: "The military moved in, but they have of course been using maximum restraint because they want this peace deal [in Swat] to work.

“We also got reports … that the military arrested at least five Taliban who were violating the accord - they were toting weapons in an area of Swat.”

‘Syndicated extremists’

Critics of Pakistan’s deal with fighters in Swat say that it has only emboldened the Taliban and, in recent days, the US has increased pressure on Pakistan to confront fighters on its soil.

General David Petraeus, the head of US central command, said Pakistan’s leaders should focus on the looming threat posed by fighters within their borders.

“The most important, most pressing threat to the very existence of their country is the threat posed by the internal extremists and groups such as the Taliban and the syndicated extremists,” he said.

Across Pakistan, more than 1,800 people have been killed in a wave of al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked attacks since July 2007.

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Re: The Swat Crisis - News, Articles, Opinions

Slightly old video (from March!) about media suppression in Swat.

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Re: The Swat Crisis - News, Articles, Opinions

**Pakistan Says It Kills 50 Taliban in Buner, but Residents Tell of Civilian Deaths
**](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/world/asia/02pstan.html?ref=global-home)By CARLOTTA GALL
Published: May 1, 2009

PULO DAND, Pakistan — The Pakistani military said it had killed more than 50 Taliban fighters in tough fighting in Buner on Friday, but families pouring out of the district said civilians were being killed, too.

“People were asked not to leave their houses,” said Abdul Bakht, 40, a farmer from Ambela, who had fled here to the south. “But the problem is they have not fired on a single Taliban yet. All they are doing is hitting the houses.”

He and other civilians caught in the operation, just in its fourth day, were already complaining of heavy-handed tactics by the Pakistani military, which has little training in counterinsurgency.

A military spokesman claimed steady progress in the operation but also said the militants were putting up fierce resistance.

The civilian complaints and the Taliban resistance pointed to the difficult task ahead for the military in driving the militants from Buner, a district just 60 miles from the capital, where hundreds of Taliban fighters advanced last week, setting off alarm here and abroad.

Trying to revive a peace accord with the Taliban from February, government officials restarted talks with Maulana Sufi Muhammad, the religious cleric who helped mediate the deal.

The provincial government said it was committed to appointing Islamic judges as part of the deal covering the Swat Valley and Buner. Maulana Muhammad, despite his protest at the military operation, promised the militants would lay down their weapons once Islamic law was in force.

But in what is clearly a two-pronged approach by the Pakistani authorities, military operations also intensified.

The military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said forces had succeeded in opening up access from the west to Buner’s central town of Daggar and were close to linking up from the south after heavy fighting at the Ambela Pass.

At least 55 militants had been killed in fighting in the previous 24 hours, bringing the total killed so far to more than 100, he said. Two members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps were killed and eight wounded in a house rigged with explosives, he said.

Militants were using antiaircraft weapons mounted on cars and recoilless rifles, and army helicopters had focused attacks on militants in cars and motorcycles on the roads.

Yet accounts from people fleeing the region said that civilians were being caught up in the fighting in Ambela and on the roads. Taliban militants had strong positions in the hills and could still resist the military advance, they said.

Villagers traveled on foot and along country roads to reach this village in the neighboring district of Swabi on Friday, their belongings piled on small vans with women and children, and even cows, packed together inside.

Officials from Al Khidmat Foundation, a religious humanitarian organization assisting the families, said more than a thousand vehicles had ferried families out in just one day.

In one house that was hit, two children died, a woman lost both legs, and a man was so seriously wounded that the family had already dug his grave and were waiting for him to die, Mr. Bakht, the farmer, said.

Three men, who tried to drive toward the military to ask them to stop firing on the houses, were also killed when a helicopter fired rockets on their car, Mr. Bakht said. A fourth man was wounded.

Two of those killed were government school examiners from the nearby Swat Valley who were in Buner to conduct school examinations when the operation started. One of the dead men was a friend of Mr. Bakht’s.

“Instead of stopping the bombardment, they fired on the car,” he said. “There is still a curfew and their bodies are still there on the road.”

A laborer, Hakim Noor, said, “We thought if they can bring peace we are happy with the army but now it seems they are hitting houses.” He who left his village Kowgah two days ago.

His uncle Jamal Noor, who escaped the village on Friday, said there was shooting in the upper part of the village and helicopters were firing rockets at the houses. Helicopters were also landing in the hills behind where the Taliban had positions.

“Now they will increasingly hit the villages as now they think they are empty and the Taliban will come down into them,” Mr. Noor said.