Word: fazlullah
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Afghanistan. It is the Swat Valley, Pakistan's biggest tourist destination, home to the country's only ski slope and a haven for trout-fishing. Its people are deeply conservative Muslims, yet highly tolerant of the liberal ways of international visitors. In recent months, however, Swat has changed. Maulana Fazlullah, a fundamentalist preacher known as the "FM Mullah" for his daily radio sermons, has launched a campaign for the establishment of Islamic law, or Shari'a, in the valley. Fazlullah is backed by Pakistani extremists who share an Islamist ideology with the Afghan Taliban next door. These militants have unleashed...
...countries to regroup in the remote, mountainous tribal areas of Waziristan. But Swat is different. The virtual takeover by extremists of a populous, settled area so close to Islamabad marks a significant advance in local militancy. "Swat is a symbol," says a Western military official based in Islamabad. "Mullah Fazlullah's influence is spreading - it doesn't look good...
...Fazlullah, a 34-year-old cleric who once earned a living ferrying passengers and goods across the Swat River, got his start studying under Maulana Sufi Mohammed, a religious teacher who founded the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) in the 1990s. In 2002 the organization was banned, and Mohammed was thrown in jail for mobilizing thousands of his followers to fight American forces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah, who by then was Mohammed's son-in-law, also went to Afghanistan to fight. Radicalized by the experience, and by his short stint in an Afghan...
...Eventually, Fazlullah's didactic sermons started to alienate many of Swat's residents, but by then it was too late - his militia had already established a foothold. Khan, the businessman from Matta, was sent threatening letters after he denounced Fazlullah's men for killing his cousin. "They have spies everywhere," he says. For too long, the central government ignored the problems festering in Swat, concerned that a crackdown on demands for Shari'a would alienate the country's Islam-based political parties. By the time the military tried to intervene, a homegrown insurgency was in full swing. Fazlullah equated resistance...
...military says it's fighting back. This past week the army command sent in 15,000 regular army troops, helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles to battle Fazlullah's ragtag band of some 500 militants. The goal is to push them back into their mountain redoubts where the winter snows might keep them out of the way long enough to secure low-lying villages. When the fighting is over, says Fazli Raziq, he will return. But his wife Zaibi feels the violence will not end: "I know in my heart that there will never be peace." For her, and for many...