Word: swats
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...this is not 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...
...When Pakistan's President, General Pervez Musharraf, declared emergency rule on Nov. 3, he cited the threat of Swat's mounting insurgency as justification. But, so far, Musharraf has used his emergency powers mainly to jail opponents and journalists, and to oust the Supreme Court judges who were about to pronounce his recent re-election as President unconstitutional. (On Nov. 19, a newly reconstituted Supreme Court comprising Musharraf loyalists decreed his re-election lawful.) While the government concentrates on putting out opposition rallies in the capital Islamabad, extremist wildfires are erupting across the land. Since the imposition of emergency rule...
...Radicalism has been on the rise for several years in Pakistan. Many members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, fleeing the U.S. assault on their bases in Afghanistan, have taken advantage of the porous border between the 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 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...
...government will ever go that far, the newly appointed Vice Chief of Army Staff, Ashfaq Kyani, who is slated to take over from Musharraf when he retires as army chief, is already taking steps to remedy some of the military's worst problems. On Monday, he visited troops in Swat to raise morale and is taking concrete steps to get them more training and equipment. Even as U.S. military commanders return again and again to well-thumbed counterinsurgency textbooks dating to Vietnam to help with current engagements in Iraq and Afghanistan, Pakistan too has to learn the art of counterinsurgency...