"The rise of Maulana Fazlullah, the man ruling Swat, has been like a roller-coaster ride. Fazlullah, a resident of the Imam Dheri area, was born to Biladar Khan, a Pakhtun of Babakarkhel clan of the Yousufzai tribe of the district. Biladar Khan was highly inspired by the TNSM and thus became one of the right-hand men of Maulana Sufi Mohammad. Finding himself even more devoted to the enforcement of Shariah, the motto of the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi (TNSM), he sent his son, the then Fazal Hayat, now Fazlullah, to his Madrassa at Qambar in Dir district. This long and equally close association between Sufi and Fazal eventually turned into matrimonial relationship when the young son of Biladar became the son-in-law of the TNSM chief. After Sufi Mohammad (who had actually formed the TNSM in 1992 after leaving the Jamaat-e-Islami) was awarded life imprisonment in 2002 by an anti-terrorism court on charges of inciting youngsters to illegally cross the Pak-Afghan border to wage a Jihad against the US-led Allied Forces in Afghanistan, Fazlullah made his native village Imam Dheri as TNSM headquarter and got it shifted from Qambar in Dir. Generally referred to as the Pakistani Taliban, primarily to distinguish itself from the Afghan Taliban led by Mullah Omar, the TNSM is a militant Wahabi organisation which has fast emerged in the Malakand division and in the Bajaur Agency as a private army to reckon with. As far as the TNSM organisational structure is concerned, Fazlullah is assisted by two Shuras, or councils. One is the Ulema Shura with several Swati clerics who advise him on religious policies of the group. Another Shura, which is also called the executive body, is the highest policy-making organ of the TNSM, which has a large number of ex-servicemen, including retired commissioned officers, as its members. Always wearing black turbans, the followers of Fazlullah are also called Black Turbans. He has never had his photograph taken, believing Islam forbids taking pictures of human beings lest it becomes the first step to idol worship. The essence of his agenda is in the motto: "Shariah ya Shahadat (Islamic laws or martyrdom)".
Explaining the impact of the commando raid in the Lal Masjid on the mind of Fazlullah, Amir Mir wrote: "During the July 2007 Lal Masjid operation against the fanatic Ghazi brothers, Fazlullah came into action against the government forces to avenge the military action. A large number of people armed with rifles, Kalashnikovs and small arms started gathering at his Madrassa as he announced it was time to go to war. His announcement that thousands of militants were ready to avenge the attack was followed by a series of suicide assaults on the security forces. As many students belonging to the Red Mosque-linked seminaries were from this area, the Army action generated a wave of sympathy for Fazlullah’s cause. Most of the anti-government rallies and demonstrations against the Lal Masjid operation were held in this region.Soon after the Lal Masjid operation, Fazlullah decided to join hands with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, led by Commander Baitullah Mehsud, in a bid to provide an umbrella to all insurgent movements operating in several tribal agencies and settled areas of the NWFP.
Since then, Fazlullah and his followers are toeing Baitullah’s line, whether they are issuing a decree, signing a peace deal with the government or scrapping the same. Therefore, it appears by all accounts that the Fazlullah-led militants are working in the same mould as the fire-spewing clerics of Lal Masjid did: to make Swat hostage to its rigid vision of militant Islam. And remember, the valley is hardly 160 kilometres from Islamabad."
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he second development of concern has been the mushrooming of individual Islamic warlords, who have established control in different parts of the tribal belt and have been enforcing their own writ in support of some demand or the other. Thus, a group in the Khyber Agency has been repeatedly attacking NATO logistics convoys moving toAfghanistan from Karachi as they pass through the agency and disrupting logistics supplies. In response to this, the US-led forces have already started working out alternate routes for logistics supplies through Russia and the Central Asian Republics (CARs). Whether this would provide relief is uncertain because movement of convoys from the CARs to southern and eastern Afghanistan would be vulnerable to attacks by the Afghan Neo Taliban headed by Pakistan-based Mulla Mohamma Omar.
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he third development of concern is the aggravation of the anti-Shia terrorism indulged in by the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ). While the past attacks by the LEJ on Shias were caused by sectarian differences, allegations of co-operation of the Shias in the tribal belt with the Pakistan Army in its operations against the Sunni TTP became an additional cause for anti-Shia anger. Many Shias in the Pashtun belt have joined the anti-Taliban Lashkars (militias) set up by the Army. This has led to increased attacks on the Shias not only in the FATA and the NWFP, but also in Punjab and Balochistan. In the latest anti-Shia incident, more than 30 Shias were killed in an explosion in Dera Ghazi Khan in Punjab on February 5,2009.
While the Pakistan Army has been playing a more active role against the TTP in the Bajaur and Khyber Agencies and in the Swat Valley, it has been taking no action against Al Qaeda, the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and the Islamic Jihad Union (IJU) in North Waziristan and against the TTP faction led by Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan. The only action against them has so far been from the US in the form of Predator strikes.
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hese gloomy figures should not obscure two positive developments.The first positive development has been that the US is no longer groping in the dark in its Predator operations in the FATA and once or twice in the NWFP. There is a greater flow of human intelligence after nearly seven years of practically nil intelligence. The flow is still inadequate, but much better than what it was till 2007. This would show that there are elements in the tribal belt,who are prepared to help the US forces provided their identity is protected and their personal security is guaranteed. The US anxiety to ensure this has come in the way of its sharing actionable intelligence with the Pakistani Army and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to guard against leaks. This trust deficit between the US intelligence and the ISI in matters relating to the sharing of intelligence has come in the way of joint operations. In an increasing number of instances, Al Qaeda and the TTP have been capturing and beheading suspected collaborators of the US. Despite this, the flow of intelligence has not stopped
My estimate is that only about one-third of the reports received by the US intelligence during 2008 proved to be correct resulting in successful Predator strikes. Even these limited successful strikes have dented the middle-level leadership of Al Qaeda operating from the Pakistani territory. Citing unidentified ISI officials and an unamed diplomat based in Islamabad, the
Newsweek has reported that 11 of the top 20 "high-value targets" along the Afghan border have been eliminated in the past six months and that since September,2008, 140 pro-Islamist officers have been sent out of the ISI.