Word: fazlullah
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 2007-2007
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...frontier provinces. The Swat valley is Pakistan's premier tourist destination, home to its only ski slope and a haven for trout fishing. But it has become increasingly embattled in the face of an anti-government campaign, over the past five months, by the charismatic radio preacher Maulana Fazlullah, known as the FM mullah, who has spawned a wave of fundamentalist militancy that has swept from the Afghan frontier through the lawless tribal areas of Waziristan and into the settled areas far from the border. The government of President General Pervez Musharraf seems unable to do anything about...
...sympathy either." A military crackdown, and the inevitable civilian casualties, will only estrange the people further. "This is the kind of counterinsurgency training that the military lacks," says the military official. "There has got to be a strong information campaign to go along with the kinetics [military force]. Fazlullah has a FM station? Jam the damn thing. They sure as hell can jam stations here [in Islamabad], so why can't they do that up there...
...Fazlullah, a local student who once earned a living ferrying passengers and goods across the Swat river, got his start studying under Maulana Sufi Muhammad, a religious teacher who founded the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammaidi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) in the 1990s. In 2002, TNSM was banned, and Muhammad thrown in jail for mobilizing thousands of his followers to fight American forces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah, by then his son-in-law, continued the campaign for Sharia using the platform of his popular radio show...
...against terrorism. Military forces have been battling an Islamist militia led by a radical cleric determined to establish Sharia law in the region. Yet the truth is, Swat's militancy has been festering for well over a year, with Musharraf's government unable to rein in the charismatic Mullah Fazlullah, who has spread his message over the airways in weekly radio addresses...
Iqbal Haider, Secretary General of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, speaking from under house arrest, questioned Musharraf's motives. "If he wants to stamp out terrorism in Pakistan, why is he arresting civil society leaders and lawyers instead of militants and religious fanatics? Why didn't he arrest Fazlullah when he first started preaching jihad? Today he has arrested hundreds of lawyers, but not a single militant, Taliban, al-Qaeda or religious fanatic. It doesn't make any sense. If you want to take the country away from the extremists, you don't do it by arresting the moderates...