Word: swats
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...mountains and valleys of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province, palace ruins and crumbling Buddhist monasteries dot the hills above war-torn locations such as Mingora, Peshawar and the Swat Valley. These magnificent ruins are all that's left of the Gandhara kingdom, which flourished from the 6th century B.C. to the 11th century A.D. It vanished under the pressure of war and conquest, re-emerging only in 1848 when relics and ruins were re-discovered by the British archaeologist, Sir Alexander Cunningham...
...impact of Hellenistic influence brought by Alexander the Great and his Macedonians. Likewise Gandharan Buddhist art reached as far as China, Korea, and Japan. After it became part of the pre-Islamic Persian Empire, Gandhara's culture went on to influence artistic developments in the Middle East. Peshawar, Swat and much of northern Pakistan lay astride a portion of the old Silk Road, the ancient highway that transported riches between the east and west. Indeed, the Jehanabad Buddha looks out over a stretch of the old path. Later, in the 7th century, Swat Valley was the birthplace of Tantric Buddhism...
...Islamabad, is a Hindu site, not Buddhist, and thus unusual for the area. "But there's no preservation, no one to look after the site," says Dr. Nasim Khan, professor of archaeology at the University of Peshawar. "The local people are damaging the site because of illegal diggings." In Swat, the Taliban have long attempted to destroy the Buddhist heritage of the region. In October 2007, as militants cemented their hold on the former tourist area, the Taliban dynamited the face of the Jehanabad Buddha into oblivion. The 23-foot-high carving of the seated Buddha, dating from...
...numbers show the extent of the war on education by the Pakistani Taliban. At least 473 schools across Swat and Federally Administered Tribal Areas have been destroyed over the past two years. Militants recently blew up a 12-room state-run high school and health clinic for boys in Hangu district, a small area nestled on the border of North Waziristan and the North-West Frontier Province. And they routinely blow up girls' schools in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and North-West Frontier Province. Three have been destroyed in the past two weeks. (See pictures of suicide-bomb attacks...
...seeking accommodation with those who use violence. But in recent years, as innocents have been killed from Karachi to Islamabad, it has become clear that it is the Pakistani people who are the most endangered by extremism. Public opinion has turned. The Pakistani army has waged an offensive in Swat and South Waziristan. And there is no doubt that the United States and Pakistan share a common enemy...