Word: fazlullah
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...campaign for Shari'a law in the area in the mid-1990s; he also fought alongside the Taliban when U.S. forces invaded in 2001. Even though he has renounced violence, Mohammed still denounces democracy as a "heresy." Now he must convince the man who has stolen his thunder - Maulana Fazlullah, whose forces control 80% of the area after a fierce two-year conflict with the Pakistani army that cost more than 1,500 lives - to lay down arms. Fazlullah is an erstwhile disciple of Mohammed as well as his estranged...
...Mohammed's success will hinge on his ability to persuade his former acolyte to end his insurgency. Fazlullah learned at the feet of Mohammed in the 1990s, fought alongside him in Swat and later in Afghanistan, and married his daughter. Both men were imprisoned upon their return from Afghanistan, and it was after he was freed that Fazlullah returned to the Swat Valley village of Imam Dheri, operating the yellow-painted chairlift that ferries people across the Swat river. According to local lore, it was after his brother was killed in a U.S. missile strike on the village of Damadola...
...worshippers keen to cross the river and attend the militant leader's Friday sermons. Swat's established élite looked on with mounting anxiety. "The followers multiplied inexorably," says a member of Swat's Wali family, the traditional tribal leader, declining to be identified by name. "We were feeling Fazlullah was a political threat. What we built over 150 years could just go in one fatwa. [The militants] played on the deep religious sentiment of the people, their economic deprivation and sense of neglect...
...Taliban won support from a section of the poor, residents say, by targeting the wealthy and the powerful, attacking families and driving them out, then looting their abandoned homes. As Swat's notables and lawmakers fled, young, unemployed men suddenly found status as local commanders with large salaries from Fazlullah's mysteriously deep pockets. (Conspiracy theories abound as to the source of his largesse.) But the key to his success, say local observers, was Fazlullah's ability to exploit local resentment at the failings of Pakistan's venal judicial system, in which complainants routinely found justice deferred or denied...
...Less clear is whether the Taliban will accept those terms. On Saturday night, after two days of talks with his father-in-law, Fazlullah, in a speech carried live by Pakistan's main news channels, said his cohorts were still discussing Mohammed's proposals. "We will consult again after the 10-day cease-fire ... We will also observe a permanent cease-fire if the government takes practical steps," he said without elaborating...