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Mullah Radio re-emerges as a threat
[Dawn]  Shortly after sneaking across the Afghan border this week, more than 100 Death Eaters loyal to Pak Taliban leader Fazlullah waited patiently on a mountain for Pak troops to approach.Several days later, the fighters released a video of what they said were the heads of 17 ambushed soldiers, along with their identification cards. Laid across a white sheet, they were a chilling reminder of the major security threat the man once known as FM Mullah or Mullah Radio still poses to US ally Pakistain, three years after the army pushed him out of the Swat  ...a valley and an administrative district in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province of Pakistain, located 99 mi from Islamabad. It is inhabited mostly by Pashto speakers. The place has gone steadily downhill since the days when Babe Ruth was the Sultan of Swat...Valley, a former tourist spot he terrorised. "He is a very big problem for Pakistain," said a Western diplomat. During his heyday, Fazlullah, who like many senior Taliban members is known as a mullah, or preacher, organised thousands of fighters who roamed picturesque Swat, imposing his radical version of Islam. Opponents, and those deemed immoral, were publicly flogged, or even beheaded and hung in squares and at intersections. Girls' schools and government buildings were burned down. Nowadays, Fazlullah's men control a 20-km stretch of the rugged and largely unpatrolled border with Pakistain from areas in Afghanistan's forbidding Nuristan province, described by nearby US troops as "the dark side of the moon". From there, Fazlullah, a burly man in his thirties with a heavy black beard, plots cross-border raids that don't kill many soldiers but agitate Pakistain's military, which thought it had defeated him during a Swat offensive in 2009. His activities in the border area, described by US President Barack Obama I am the change that you seek... as the world's most dangerous place,could complicate efforts to stabilise the region before most foreign combat troops leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014. BIG AMBITIONS Fazlullah is a distraction for Pakistain's military, which is also fighting Hakimullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain group blamed for many of the suicide kabooms across the South Asian country. Sirajuddin Ahmad, Fazlullah's front man and cousin, said the group's aim was to recapture Swat, and take control of Pakistain. "The establishment of sharia (Islamic law) is our goal, and we will not rest until we achieve it. We will fight whoever stands in our way," he told Rooters by telephone from Fazlullah has slowly rebuilt his militia by securing shelter and support from Afghan Death Eaters in an area where groups form loose alliances against the United States, Afghanistan and Pakistain. "He is extremely dangerous," said a Pak security official. "Fazlullah has 150 men, rocket-propelled grenades and light machine guns. You just need a small amount of men to carry out effective operations. This is a big number." Fazlullah, once known for fiery ...a single two-syllable word carrying connotations of both incoherence and viciousness. A fiery delivery implies an audience of rubes and yokels, preferably forming up into a mob... radio sermons, was the first Taliban leader that took control of an area in Pakistain outside the unruly ethnic Pashtun tribal belt along the Afghan border. There are no signs that he will be able to penetrate deep inside towns or cities. His men usually arrive in a big wave, attack and retreat back into Afghanistan. But his operations have prompted Pakistain's military -- one of the world's largest, to repeatedly urge the Afghan government and NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Originally it was a mutual defense pact directed against an expansionist Soviet Union. In later years it evolved into a mechanism for picking the American pocket while criticizing the cut of the American pants... forces to go after the bad boy leader. On Monday, Pakistain protested to NATO and the Afghan military, accusing them of failing to act against bad boy havens in Afghanistan after the cross-border attack in which the Pak soldiers were killed. Nuristan police chief Ghulamullah Nuristani says there are no signs that anyone intends to eliminate Fazlullah, even though he was creating havoc for people there, charging illegal taxes, stealing supplies from trucks and sometimes killing drivers. "We can't attack them because they are armed with light and heavy weapons which are much better than ours," he said. "If we get support from the central government or coalition forces we will be able to destroy their strongholds." Fazlullah's fighters usually slip across the border into Pakistain at night and take positions on high ground. "We have patrols and vehicles moving in the area to guard the border, so they wait and try to ambush them," said a Pak intelligence official. Intelligence officials say Fazlullah's men operate in the Afghan provinces of Nuristan and Kunar, and enjoy the support of hundreds of Death Eaters there. Support goes both ways when it comes to fighting the US-backed governments in Afghanistan and Pakistain. Some Death Eaters have long-standing bonds. "Many of us know each other from before, as we studied in the same madrassas (religious seminaries)," said a commander of a bad boy group in Kunar. "When we need to conduct an operation in Afghanistan, we request help and they give us fighters. When they need to conduct an operation, we provide them with assistance as well." Few experts expect Fazlullah to make the kind of gains he seems determined to achieve. But he is making a big impact. Posted by: Fred 2012-06-29 |
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