 Miranshah (Rantburg News Service): Locally-grown Taliban have taken control of most of North and South Waziristan, enforcing strict social edicts such as a ban on the sale of music and films, shaving of beards, singing, dancing, laughing, and titties the Guardian reports. "We'd never have noticed if we hadn't read it in the paper," a highly-placed official in Islamabad admitted, speaking on condition of anonymity. "I mean, the place isn't that different from the rest of the country, is it?"Turban-wearing men of appropriately fearsome demeanor have been shaking down drivers at makeshift "checkpoints." Last week an Islamic court was established in Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, to replace the traditional jirga. Dour-looking old men with shaggy beards hand out 7th-century style justice, guarded by dour-looking young men with scraggly beards brandishing knockoffs of Soviet weaponry. The Pakistani military deployed 70,000 troops to Waziristan two years ago to rein in the militants. Rather than actually using them to put down rebellion, the local commanders spent their time chatting with duplicitous locals while tribal lashkars ran around beating drums and scaring the chickens. An army assault against an alleged Al Qaeda training camp outside Miranshah on March 1 left more than 100 dead. Since declaring a curfew in Miranshah, government troops claim to have regained shaky control. “The so-called war on terror is going badly,” said one diplomat. "That's because the Paks have been trying to have it both ways, fighting their definition of terrorism on one hand and nurturing their definition of Freedom Fighters™ on the other, regardless of the fact that they're the same people. They've been trying to subvert Afghanistan so they'd have strategic depth, and now they've ended up truncating their own country while their neighbors laugh at them." Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban is a loose alliance of local rustics operating under spittle-spewing clerics of the sort beloved by many in the country. Many are angered by heavy-handed but ineffectual attacks against suspected Al Qaeda hideouts, which are thought to have killed hundreds of women, children, puppies, kittens, fluffy bunnies and baby ducks over the last two years. But most are terribly impressed by their own ability to scowl, roll their eyes, and brandish guns. |