The news outlets are a’hum today with 400 approx villagers from Upper Dir district’s Haya Gai area who formed a militia, and did their own vigilante mission thru five villages to hunt Taliban. Their complacence with Taliban muscle rule broke after a homicide bomber killed 33 during weekly prayer services on Friday.
suspected of harbouring Taliban and killed four militants.—AP/File
The citizens’ militia has occupied three of the villages and is trying to push the Taliban out of the other two. Some 20 houses suspected of harboring Taliban were destroyed, he said. At least four militants were killed, he said.
The government has in the past encouraged local citizens to set up militias, known as lashkars, to oust Taliban fighters.
“It is something very positive that tribesmen are standing against the militants. It will discourage the miscreants,” Rehman said. [Atif-ur-Rehman, the district coordination officer]
The Taliban, violating the latest in a serious of truces over the years, predictably took advantage of the agreement and have been aggressively expanding territory and control. Just as in Iraq, where clerics and tribal leaders turned on the militant jihadis and their oppressive rule (aka the Sunni Awakening), local villagers are doing the same in Taliban controlled area… and is welcomed action by the Pakistani government.
It was the latest in a series of instances of people turning their guns on the Taliban in recent weeks and trying to force them out of their areas and will encourage the Pakistani government which needs public support to defeat the militants.
The United States, which needs sustained Pakistani action to help defeat al Qaeda and cut off militant support for the insurgency in Afghanistan, will also be heartened by the move.
The Pakistani military has been battling Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, for more than a month after the militants took advantage of a peace pact to gain new ground.
The army offensive has broad public support even though many in Pakistan are ambivalent about the Taliban and are wary of the government’s close alliance with the United States.
It was only a little over a week ago where Chris Brummitt of the AP was reporting that villagers were outraged at the Pakistani Army’s successful mission, driving the Taliban out of Sultanwas.
When Pakistan’s army drove the Taliban back from this small northwestern village, it also destroyed much of everything else here.
F-16 fighter jets, military helicopters, tanks and artillery reduced houses, mosques and shops to rubble, strewn with children’s shoes, shattered TV sets and perfume bottles.
Commanders say the force was necessary in an operation they claim killed 80 militants. But returning residents do not believe this: Although a burned-out army tank at the entrance to Sultanwas indicates the Taliban fought back, villagers say most fighters fled into the mountains.
Beyond any doubt is their fury at authorities for wrecking their homes _ the sort of backlash the army doesn’t want as it tries to win the support of the people for its month-old offensive against the Taliban in Pakistan’s northwest frontier region near the border with Afghanistan.
“The Taliban never hurt the poor people, but the government has destroyed everything,” Sher Wali Khan told the first reporting team to reach the village of about 1,000 homes.
“They are treating us like the enemy,” he said as he collected shredded copies of a Quran from the ruins of a mosque, one of three that were damaged, possibly beyond repair.
This is a repetitive complaint from previous Army offensive drives in the militant controlled regions… the collateral damage in both infrastructure and civilian lives. The Army efforts are damned if they do, and damned if they don’t. In the middle? The villagers themselves.
Needless to say, allowing villagers to do their own policing at the local level is an approach the Pakistan government embraces as a preferred solution. However what remains to be seen is if the locals’ access to comparable arms and munitions can compete with the superior funded Taliban and their financial organizations.
In the Sunni Awakening, it’s success depended upon US aid in both dollars and military back up support. Perhaps the US dollars dedicated to fighting Pakistan’s jihad movement and that now defunction “war on terror” should be devoted to ensuring a level weaponry playing field between the Taliban and the locals… then let them regain their territory, back yard by back yard.
But one thing should be obvious to the Muslim world… while they may purport to hate the US, they hate being under Taliban oppressive rule even more. Again it shows that Muslim support for this brand of Shariah law is waning.
And that lesson… just as was learned in Iraq when the jihad movements were given full rein to demonstrate their cruel brutality against fellow Muslims… needs to be driven home yet once more.
Vietnam era Navy wife, indy/conservative, and an official California escapee now residing as a red speck in the sea of Oregon blue.
Greetings:
Welcome to the lands of “I against my brother; my brother and I against our cousin; my brother, my cousin and I against the stranger.”
One of the continuing themes at the “Jihad Watch” web site is that Western civilization is better served by trying to keep the internecine Islamic stew on the boil rather than helping them to make nice. Of all the religions in the world, Islam is the one most likely to keep tribal cultures stagnated both spiritually and socio-politically.