Taliban Running School for Suicide Bombers
THE INDEPENDENT: Army discovers boys as young as nine brainwashed in Swat valley training camp

Pakistan said yesterday it had rescued 20 young boys who were among hundreds recruited by the Taliban and brainwashed into becoming suicide bombers at a secret indoctrination camp.

The boys, some as young as nine, have revealed details of how they were induced to become part of the Taliban's army of jihad inside Pakistan and told their rescuers that more than 1,000 children may be undergoing training in the special camp in the Swat valley. Their discovery by the army as troops were sweeping through the valley conducting the final stages of a military offensive against the Taliban underscores the organisation's power over poor Pakistani communities and the extreme lengths Taliban commanders are willing to go to achieve their aims.

The rescued children were held at a training camp in the Charbagh area of the Swat valley, where their indoctrination programme reportedly lasted more than a month. Some were recovered as the army was carrying out "search and sweep" operations as part of the final stages of its military offensive in the valley, while others were handed over to the army by worried parents. >>> Omar Waraich in Islamabad | Wednesday, July 29, 2009

Pakistan Refugees Return to Swat
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Thousands of people began returning to Pakistan's Swat Valley after nearly three months of fighting that drove the Taliban from the region and created the country's worst refugee crisis in six decades.

Pakistan earned praise at home and abroad for its offensive in Swat, which began in April after the collapse of a peace deal that handed the valley just 100 miles north of Islamabad, the capital, to militants.

Under the protection of soldiers and helicopter gunships, refugees started coming back Monday. How Pakistan manages the return of the nearly two million people who fled the fighting will go a long way to determining whether it can solidify the army's gains in the strategic valley as it moves to retake more-formidable Taliban strongholds in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

In a reminder that the threat facing Pakistan has spread beyond northwestern regions such as Swat and tribal areas, an explosion Monday in the country's east killed at least nine people.

The midmorning blast in a farming village near Mian Channu, in Punjab province, appeared to have been caused by explosives stored in the house of a teacher who had set up a small religious school, a police official said.

He couldn't say why explosives were in the house, but two senior Punjab police officials said there was evidence the building was used as a meeting place for Islamist militants, who in recent months have stepped up attacks in previously peaceful parts of eastern Pakistan.

Separately, 13 suspected al Qaeda militants, including four Kuwaiti and two Saudi nationals, were arrested near Quetta, capital of the southwestern province of Baluchistan, Reuters reported. Security forces also recovered explosive-fitted jackets used for suicide bombing, an official said.

In Swat, officials have carefully planned the refugees' return, many observers say. Pakistani and international aid officials say they have mapped out how the government would ensure the orderly -- and voluntary -- return of residents to the valley and surrounding areas, where police and local government are nearly nonexistent, schools and clinics are shuttered, and many houses were destroyed or damaged in the fighting. >>> ZAHID HUSSAIN in Sakha Kott, Pakistan, and MATTHEW ROSENBERG in New Delhi | Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Pakistan : les combats s'intensifient, la crise humanitaire s'aggrave
LE MONDE: L’armée pakistanaise est entrée, samedi 23 mai, dans Mingora, principale ville de la vallée de Swat, dans le nord-ouest du pays, où ils continuaient à affronter les talibans. Selon un porte-parole de l'armée, le général Athar Abbas, les insurgés ont été chassés de plusieurs quartiers, et 17 rebelles, dont un important commandant, ont été tués ces dernières 24 heures dans les combats, près d'un mois après le début de l'offensive.

L'assaut contre Mingora, une ville dont la population était estimée à environ 300 000 personnes avant que la plupart ne fuient les combats, est une étape cruciale pour l'armée et le gouvernement pakistanais. Vendredi, l'armée estimait que 10% seulement de la population se trouvait encore dans la ville.

La prise de Mingora, qui était contrôlée par les talibans depuis plusieurs semaines, est essentielle pour que l'armée pakistanaise puisse se targuer d'avoir remporté la victoire dans la région de Swat. L'armée a assuré avoir tué plus de 1 100 talibans en presque quatre semaines d'offensive et reconnu avoir perdu seulement 58 soldats. Mais ces informations sont impossible à vérifier, la zones des combats étant bouclée par les militaires.

De nombreux témoignages de personnes déplacées font cependant état de bombardements sans discernement de l'armée qui ont fait de nombreuses victimes civiles, les militaires n'ayant engagé les combats au sol que depuis quelques jours. >>> LEMONDE.FR avec AFP et Reuters | Samedi 23 Mai 2009

Taliban "Shaving Beards" to Flee Swat: Army
REUTERS: KOTA, Pakistan - Taliban fighters are shaving off their beards and trying to flee from a Pakistani army offensive in their Swat bastion, the military said on Friday, as it relaxed a curfew to allow civilians to get out.

The army launched an offensive in the Swat valley, northwest of Islamabad, last week to stop the spread of Taliban influence which had alarmed the United States and other Western allies of nuclear-armed Pakistan.

More than 900,000 civilians have fled and the United Nations has warned of a humanitarian tragedy unless Pakistan gets massive assistance.

Clashes had erupted in various parts of the region, the military said on Friday, adding it was achieving successes.
It also appealed to civilians to identify Taliban fighters trying to flee.

"We have confirmed reports that these Taliban terrorists, after shaving off their beards and cutting their hair, are fleeing from the area," the military said in a statement.

"We request the people of Swat to identify them," it said, while providing a telephone number for informants to call or send text messages.

Taliban members and supporters usually have long beards and many of them also have long hair. There was no immediate comment from the Taliban about the military's statement. >>> By Junaid Khan | Friday, May 15, 2009

Fighter Jets Pound Taliban Strongholds across Swat
DAWN: MINGORA / TIMERGARA: Fighter jets and attack helicopters pounded Taliban hideouts in the northwest on Wednesday. Meanwhile, a parliamentarian from Swat said 700,000 people were stranded in the valley.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have fled the punishing offensive, now into its 17th day, escaping also out of the reach of Taliban fighters who have terrorised the local population in a bloody campaign to enforce sharia law.

The air attacks targeted Taliban strongholds across the Swat valley, AFP quoted security officials as saying.

Helicopter gunships also swung into action in the neighbouring district of Lower Dir, where the military has been on the offensive since April 26 after Taliban fighters advanced within 60 miles of Islamabad.

Up to 15,000 security forces are taking on about 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat in what Islamabad calls a battle to ‘eliminate’ militants.

‘All exit roads from Mingora have been closed. Our troops have surrounded the city to deny any exit to militants,’ said a military official, referring to the main town in Swat. >>> Dawn correspondents Hameedulah Khan and Haleem Asad contributed to this report. | Wednesday, May 13, 2009

DAWN: Can the Taliban Be Defeated?

A Pakistani army soldier stands guard on the roof of a mosque in troubled Buner. Photo courtesy of Dawn
THE moment of truth for the federal government and the Pakistan Army to save Pakistan from imploding under the threat of the Taliban insurgency has arrived.

President Zardari in Washington and Gen Kayani in Rawalpindi, with the blessings of the tripartite Af-Pak strategy meetings presided over by President Obama, prompted Prime Minister Gilani in Islamabad to tell the nation near midnight last week about the decision to call out the armed forces ‘to eliminate the militants and terrorists in order to restore the honour and dignity of our homeland, and to protect the people.’ That reassurance was needed since previous army operations were half-hearted and botched and the operation in Buner and Dir was hardly faring any better, notwithstanding the claims of the ISPR.

The broadcast recalled a similar dramatic moment two months ago when the prime minister in the early hours of the morning announced the reinstatement of the chief justice and the end of the siege of Islamabad by the security forces to prevent the lawyers’ long march. The armed forces — whose refusal to support the government action against the long march is believed to have played a role in reinstating the chief justice — overcame their reservations about a full-fledged military action against the Swat Taliban.

The latter’s proximity to Islamabad had raised the spectre of a Taliban takeover within weeks and led to alarm all over the world, particularly in Washington. The latter seemed more worried about Pakistan’s cache of nuclear weapons falling into the wrong hands than the fate of the country’s 170 million people. No one can possibly doubt the pivotal role of the army in our politics.

While the motivation and the circumstances that led to this announcement will be debated for long, the decision to take the Taliban head-on, if successfully executed, could become a historical landmark, along with the reinstatement of the chief justice, and transform Pakistan’s currently bleak future. >>> By S.M. Naseem | Wednesday, May 13, 2009

Our Religion Is Our Security in Pakistan: Swat Sikhs
THE INTERNATIONAL NEWS: GURDWARA SRI PANJA SAHIB (Hasanabdal): Jaswant Kaur is a middle aged mother of four, full of life and smiles as she makes tea for us and reminisces about life in village Pir Baba in Buner. But while she is glad that she took her children away from the hell like situation back home, she can’t stop fretting about her husband who stayed behind. The three days that she has been at Gurdwara Sri Panja Sahib, Hasanabdal, already seem like an agonising lifetime. It’s never easy being a refugee within one’s own land.

But like many others around her, Jaswant is a brave woman. She is already a commanding presence in the sprawling kitchen of the massive Gurdwara which otherwise has the capacity to house up to ten thousand people. It’s amazing how the majority of the women here can still smile, even those like Jaswant who have had to leave their spouses behind, for one reason or another. Maybe they are smiling because unlike the Muslim displaced people of Swat, who are forced to languish on the roads of Rawalpindi and elsewhere and eking out a living in miserable circumstances, the Sikh community has suffered a much better fate, at least till now. None of us can even imagine the trauma of someone waking up happy and all settled in their home one morning, and becoming a helpless refugee the next. >>> Mariana Baabar | Monday, May 4, 2009

Taliban-Style Justice Stirs Growing Anger
THE WASHINGTON POST: Sharia Being Perverted*, Pakistanis Say

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, May 9 -- When black-turbaned Taliban fighters demanded in January that Islamic sharia law be imposed in Pakistan's Swat Valley, few alarm bells went off in this Muslim nation of about 170 million.

Sharia, after all, is the legal framework that guides the lives of all Muslims.

Officials said people in Swat were fed up with the slow and corrupt state courts, scholars said the sharia system would bring swift justice, and commentators said critics in the West had no right to interfere.

Today, with hundreds of thousands of people fleeing Swat and Pakistani troops launching an offensive to drive out the Taliban forces, the pendulum of public opinion has swung dramatically. The threat of "Talibanization" is being denounced in Parliament and on opinion pages, and the original defenders of an agreement that authorized sharia in Swat are in sheepish retreat.

The refugees are the "victims of ignorant cavemen masquerading as fighters of Islam," columnist Shafqat Mahmood charged in the News International newspaper Friday. He said that the "barbarian horde" that invaded Swat never intended to implement a sharia-based judicial system and that they just used it as cover. "This is a fight for power, not Islam," he wrote. >>> By Pamela Constable | Sunday, May 10, 2009

*Not so perverted! The Taliban are merely following the straight path (of Allah) – as-Sirat al-Mustaqim! – Mark

Trapped by Taliban Terror
THE SUNDAY TIMES: Innocent families are hemmed in as the army tries to crush the hardline Islamic militants fighting for control of north-west Pakistan

A Taliban militant smiles as he holds his weapon outside the mosque where tribal elders and the Taliban met in Daggar, Buner's main town, Pakistan, Thursday, April 23, 2009. Photo courtesy of The Sunday Times
FIERCE fighting engulfed the once serene mountain resort of Swat yesterday, with thousands of civilians trapped as the Pakistani army launched an all-out offensive against the Taliban.

In Swat’s main town of Mingora, now controlled by the Taliban, residents described a scene of terror. Taliban positions were heavily shelled, food and water were running low and electricity and most telephone lines had been cut.

Some described how they were left cowering inside their homes, praying for survival as fighter jets screeched overhead. An army curfew and Taliban threats prevented them fleeing.

The army said it had killed 55 more Taliban fighters in Swat yesterday, bringing the total to more than 200 since the operation began. Hundreds of civilians were feared dead. The provincial government, claiming that hundreds of thousands more were flooding down from the mountains in search of safety, said it could not cope. >>> Christina Lamb and Daud Pakistan Khattak in Batkhela, Swat Valley | Sunday, May 10, 2009

Taliban Tighten Hold on Pakistan as Army Backs Off
THE SYDNEY MORNING HERALD: TALIBAN forces tightened their grip on Pakistan's Swat region and continued resisting the military's efforts to dislodge them from neighbouring Buner, bringing a fragile peace accord closer to collapse and the volatile north-west region nearer to full-fledged conflict.

Yet even as the Taliban continued their rampage and rejected the Government's latest concession to their demands - the appointment of Islamic-law judges in Swat - Pakistan's military leaders clung to hopes for a non-violent solution, saying that security forces were "still exercising restraint to honour the peace agreement".

Behind this strained hope for a peaceful solution lies an array of factors - competing military priorities, reluctance to fight fellow Muslims, lack of strong executive leadership and some internal sympathy for the insurgents - that analysts say has long prevented the Pakistani army from making a full-fledged assault on violent Islamist groups. >>> Declan Walsh in Islamabad | Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Thousands Flee Pakistan's Swat Valley
Residents prepare to flee from Mingora, the main town in Pakistan's Swat Valley. Photo courtesy of The Wall Street Journal
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: ISLAMABAD -- Thousands of panicked residents on foot and crammed in buses, vans and trucks fled Swat valley north of Pakistan's capital Tuesday following the breakdown of a fragile truce between government forces and the Taliban.

Authorities lifted a curfew for a few hours to allow residents to evacuate as the militants took control of Mingora, the main town of the valley, which lies about 100 miles from Islamabad. Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for North West Frontier Province, which includes Swat, said he expects as many as 500,000 to flee in the near future.

Khushal Khan, head of the local administration, urged residents to leave their homes before evening as fighting between the army and militants broke out once again. Pakistan's military has been fighting the Taliban in Swat after each side accused the other of failing to honor the terms of a peace accord struck in February to end the conflict in Swat in return for the imposition of Sharia law.

Tuesday's exodus worsened a humanitarian problem stemming from the displacement of more than half a million people from Pakistan's lawless tribal region near the Afghan border and in parts of North West Frontier Province where security forces have been check the militants' efforts to expand their influence. >>> By Zahid Hussain | Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Pakistan – Taliban: "The Scenario Is Totally Bleak"

Alarm Grows Over Pakistan’s Failure to Halt Militant Gains
Taliban militants on Thursday outside a mosque where tribal elders and members of the Taliban met in Daggar, the main town in the Buner district of Pakistan. Photo courtesy of The New York Times
THE NEW YORK TIMES: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — With 400 to 500 Taliban fighters newly in control of a strategically important district just 70 miles from here, Pakistani authorities have deployed only a poorly paid and equipped constabulary force — numbering just several hundred — to the area.

The Taliban appeared to be consolidating control in the district, Buner, on Thursday after moving in and establishing checkpoints on Wednesday. Residents said Taliban militants held a meeting, or jirga, with local elders and the local administration on Thursday. The residents said the meeting yielded a truce similar to the one reached with local leaders in the Swat Valley, which resulted in the agreement by the government of President Asif Ali Zardari to allow the imposition of Islamic law there 10 days ago.

“This concession represents a serious development and reflects both the growing strength of the Pakistani Taliban and the inability of the Pakistani army to conduct successful counterinsurgency operations,” said Senator Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat on the Armed Services Committee who just returned from his fifth visit to Pakistan.

The fall of Buner has raised new international alarm about the ability of the Pakistani government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance from the Swat Valley, where as part of the truce agreement, the Pakistani Army remains in its barracks. The Taliban have moved to within a few hours’ drive of Islamabad, the capital of this country, and the neighboring garrison city of Rawalpindi.

The Pakistani military does not have a presence in Buner, Pakistani and Western officials said. From the hills of the district, the Taliban have access to the flatlands of the district of Swabi, which lead directly to the four-lane highway that connects Islamabad and Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, where much of the Pakistani Taliban operate. >>> By Jane Perlez and Zubair Shah | Thursday, April 23, 2009

Pakistan – NWFP: Swat Taliban Consolidate Grip over Buner
Istiqbal Khan, a parliamentarian from Buner, told the AP that the militants had entered the district in ‘large numbers’ and started setting up checkpoints at main roads and strategic positions.—AP. Photo courtesy of Dawn
DAWN.COM: ISLAMABAD: Taliban militants are setting up checkpoints in a district next to Swat Valley, officials and witnesses said Wednesday, spurring fears that a government-backed peace deal imposing Islamic law in the area has emboldened the insurgents to expand their reign.

Reports that the top government official in another adjacent district was kidnapped by militants added to the growing concern.

Pakistan’s president signed off on the peace pact last week in hopes of calming Swat, where some two years worth of clashes between the Taliban and security forces have killed hundreds and displaced up to a third of the one-time tourist haven’s 1.5 million residents.

The agreement covers the Malakand region, which comprises roughly one-third of NWFP, a strategic stretch that runs along the Afghan border and bumps into the tribal areas where al Qaeda and the Taliban reportedly have strongholds.

Supporters say the deal was the best way to bring peace, and that it also addresses long-time local grievances over the inefficient regular judicial system. Critics, including the White House, have slammed the deal as an affront to democracy and human rights, saying it gives militants a state-sanctioned sanctuary.

Some critics go as far as to say that Swat could be the first domino to fall — that Islamabad, which is less than a hundred miles away, could follow along with other segments of the country that neighbours Afghanistan. >>> | Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Pakistan Sharia Law Infringes Rights, Democracy: US
AFP: WASHINGTON — The White House said Tuesday that an accord signed by Pakistan's president putting part of the country under Islamic law in a bid to combat the Taliban went against human rights and democracy.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that the Obama administration believed that "solutions involving security in Pakistan don't include less democracy and less human-rights.

"The signing of that denoting strict Islamic law in the Swat valley goes against both of those principles." >>> Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved | Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Pakistani Peace Deal Gives New Clout to Taliban Rebels
Map courtesy of The Wall Street Journal
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: MINGORA, Pakistan -- Thousands of Islamist militants are pouring into Pakistan's Swat Valley and setting up training camps here, quickly making it one of the main bases for Taliban fighters and raising their threat to the government in the wake of a controversial peace deal.

President Asif Ali Zardari effectively ratified the government's deal with the Taliban Monday by signing a bill that imposes Islamic law in Swat, a key plank of the accord, hours after legislators overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging it. Pakistani officials have touted the deal, reached in February, as a way to restore peaceful order in the bloodied region -- which lies just a few hours' drive from the capital -- and halt the Taliban's advance.

Yet a visit to the Taliban-controlled valley here found mounting evidence that the deal already is strengthening the militants as a base for war. U.S. officials contend the pact has given the Taliban and its allies in al Qaeda and other Islamist groups an advantage in their long-running battle against Pakistan's military.

The number of militants in the valley swelled in the months before the deal with the Taliban was struck, and they continue to move in, say Pakistani and U.S. officials. They now estimate there are between 6,000 and 8,000 fighters in Swat, nearly double the number at the end of last year.

Taliban leaders here make no secret of their ultimate aim. "Our objective is to drive out Americans and their lackeys" from Pakistan and Afghanistan, said Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the group, in an interview here. "They are not Muslims and we have to throw them out."

Militant training camps are springing up across the valley's thickly forested mountainsides. "Young men with no prospect of employment and lack of education facilities are joining the militants," said Abdur Rehman, a schoolteacher in Swat. >>> By Zahid Hussain and Matthew Rosenberg | Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Pakistan Deal Enshrines Sharia Law
Women wearing burqas in North West Frontier Province. Photo courtesy of CNN
CNN: ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed into law Monday a peace deal for the nation's violence-plagued Swat Valley, according to a presidential spokesman.

The deal implements Islamic law, or sharia, in the Swat Valley region of North West Frontier Province.

Last week, pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad announced he was pulling out of a peace deal for Swat Valley, saying the government was not serious about implementing Islamic law, or sharia, in the region.

Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Saturday the peace deal remained intact.

Mohammad brokered a cease-fire in February between the Pakistani government and his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, who commands the Taliban in Swat Valley.

Although details of the deal were not immediately available, it was understood that the area will come under the Taliban's strict interpretation of sharia. >>> | Monday, April 13, 2009

Pakistani Court to Hear Public Flogging Case
ABC News (Australia): The chief justice of Pakistan has intervened over a video in circulation showing the public flogging of a teenage girl in the north-western Swat Valley area.

Chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has called a court hearing on the matter next week.

He has ordered top government officials from North West Frontier Province to appear in person and produce the girl, who is shown in the video being held down by two men while a third hits her with a strap while she cries out in pain.

A human rights activist, Tahira Abdullah, described the flogging as a defamation of Islam.

"I am sickened to the core. I feel nauseous," she said. >>> | Saturday, April 4, 2009

Video: Radicals Beat Girl, 17, in Islamic Stronghold of Swat, Pakistan
TIMESONLINE: This grainy footage appears to show a 17-year-old girl being beaten by Islamic radicals in Pakistan’s northwestern region of Swat, where Sharia law was introduced after the government reached a truce with the Taleban in February.

A local Taleban commander in the militant stronghold of Matta, 25 miles from the regional capital, Mingora, ordered the girl to be flogged a week ago after accusing her of adultery, according to local reporters.

But some residents of Matta have accused the commander of ordering the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage, the reporters told The Times.

“Please! Enough! Enough!” the girl is heard crying in Pashtu, the language of the tribes who dominate northwestern Pakistan – now the main hub of Taleban and al-Qaeda activity.

At another point, she cries: “I am repenting, my father is repenting what I have done, my grandmother is repenting what I have done...”

The man flogging her is also heard abusing his colleague as he struggles to hold her down and stop her covering her backside with her hands.

“You should hold her tightly so she doesn’t move,” he is heard saying. >>> Jeremy Page, Delhi | Thursday, April 2, 2009

Taliban Justice in Swat Valley: Sharia Law Takes Over

Taliban Enforces Sharia Ruthlessly: Report
DNA (India): London – Drug peddlers have been flogged, music shops closed and girls older than 13 barred from going to schools as Taliban enforces Islamic law in Pakistan's northeast Swat valley.

Taliban writ is the only thing that counts for those who break the Sharia law which has been implemented since the Pakistan Army has given up its control under an agreement with the militants to establish peace in the region.

In Mingora, 175 km from Islamabad, hooded Talibani enforcers are patrolling the streets and meeting out summary justice, The Times [of India] reported on Thursday. In front of large crowd they flog people who have broken edicts set by Taliban. Drug addicts and dealers are held down in the dust by heavily armed militants and flogged. They cry out in pain shouting for Allah. The punishment is brutal but has popular support, the report said.

The valley has now been transformed into Afghanistan of 2001. Under the agreement, Taliban can administer the region, run Sharia courts, ban women from marketplaces, outlaw music shops and stop girls above 13 going to school, the paper said.

"I send a message to the people of the West: stop spending money on tanks and aircraft and attacking the poor people of the world. Look after your own poor people and let
us be. Change your policies. You cannot win here or in Afghanistan. Keep out," the report quoted Muslim Khan, a US educated English-speaking Taliban leader, as saying. [Source: DNA] | Thursday, March 26, 2009

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