SPIEGELONLINE INTERNATIONAL: Once Pakistan's favorite tourist destination, Swat Valley is now ruled by a brutal Taliban group. The infamous commander Mullah Fazlullah has installed a Sharia emirate here, and President Musharraf has stood by and allowed it to happen.
The huge billboard on the pass high in the mountains may be yellow and faded but it's still legible. "Welcome to Swat Valley," is written in huge letters with a picture of a jeep surrounded by tourists underneath.
They are all smilling, enjoying the view from the mountains, that range 2,000 meters high into the clear blue skies. The advertisement harks back to a time when the Swat Valley was considered the Switzerland of Pakistan. Islamabad's middle classes would tramp up the mountains in the summer and in winter they would whiz down the country's only ski slopes. "A paradise on earth," was Swat's motto.
That was before the Swat Valley came to epitomize the current crisis in Pakistan, before President Pervez Musharraf used the region as an excuse for his state of emergency. The military ruler claimed to want to come down hard on the religious extremists by imposing emergency rule. And he repeats this claim at every opportunity. But it has since become clear that the general was most concerned with holding on to power. In the Realm of Mullah Fazlullah (more) By Matthias Gebauer in the Swat Valley, Pakistan
Mark Alexander
