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Fears of Targeted Shootings Grow in Pakistan's Swat
[An Nahar] The horrific attack on a Pak child rights activist, shot in the head by the Taliban in front of terrified schoolgirls, has raised fears that targeted attacks are on the rise in 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. Malala Yousafzai, 14, who won international recognition for a blog about the horrors of life under the Taliban and a campaign for the right to an education, is the highest-profile target of Death Eaters in Swat for more than three years. The army declared the region once known as the "Switzerland ...home of the Helvetians, famous for cheese, watches, yodeling, and William Tell... of Pakistain" back under control in July 2009, defeating radical holy man Mullah Fazlullah  ...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullahs Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan... and the Taliban fighters who waged a two-year campaign of terror in the district. The operation won praise in the United States. It was arguably Pakistain's most successful offensive to date against the homegrown bully boyz who have bombed and killed thousands across the country for the last five years. The Swat of 2012 is unrecognizable from the Swat of 2009. There are no Taliban on the streets. Girls are free to go to school. Shops are bustling, women walk without fear. But after Malala was shot on Tuesday -- by a man who boarded her bus, asked the children to point her out and fired a bullet into her skull -- parents are worried. "It is calm now in Swat but this attack has worried us for our children's future," Rahim Khan, a member of Malala's extended family, told AFP at home in Mingora. And Malala has not been the only victim. In the last four months, two businessmen and outspoken anti-militant campaigners have been rubbed out and two others maimed, raising fears of a wave of liquidations targeting those who speak out against extremism. "In the last three or four months, unknown persons have started targeting elders in the area who want peace in Swat," peace activist Mukhtar Yousafzai told AFP. "We fear it may be the start of assassinations." All four victims before Malala were senior members of an anti-militancy group. Yousafzai says he too has been threatened several times. The army claimed to have killed hundreds of Taliban fighters in Swat, but many are understood to have fled to Pakistain's tribal belt and into Afghanistan. Fazlullah, under a bounty of 50 million rupees ($524,000), has never been captured. Local residents ask how the attack could have happened and how the perpetrators could have escaped an area with such a visible police and army presence. Police blame the recent shootings on gunnies who cross the mountains into Swat from the northwest, then melt away without trace. "It is very difficult to hunt down these people in the valley, a home to more than one million people," one local police officer told AFP on condition of anonymity. Malala goes to the Khushal Public School founded by her father Ziauddin, a prominent Swat teacher, in a middle-class neighborhood of Mingora. Her family never believed she needed special protection. "It happened in broad daylight. It means some (extremist) elements are still here and it is really disturbing," said Habibullah Khan, a shopkeeper in the Mingora bazaar. The shock in Mingora is palpable. Relatives, family friends and well-wishers have visited Malala's house, where police now stand guard, to express support. "Our only demand is protection. We need security. The government has completely failed to protect students," said Ahmad Shah, chairman of the association of private schools that includes Malala's. "Girl students in particular feel insecure." Security analyst Imtiaz Gul, who has written extensively about the tribal belt, suggests that after three years of relative peace, the authorities may be letting their guard drop and enabling Taliban remnants to strike. "We have to keep in mind that lots of Death Eaters are embedded in the population without being detected by security agencies," he told AFP. "It is quite possible that complacency within the security services and civilian government encourages them to resume their terror campaign." Pakistain's English-language newspaper Dawn also urged caution. "There is no room for complacency, and even sporadic targeted attacks could indicate the presence of a support base for the Taliban in the area," it warned. Posted by: Fred 2012-10-12 |
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