Pakistan's half-hearted move against the Taliban

The Christian Science Monitor has a fine article on the various responses to the recent Pakistani attack on the Taliban in Dir district. I find it most interesting what Dawn has to say, not only because its statement is right on, but also because it is a Pakistani voice:

Welcome as it is, the operation in Dir may also strengthen the impression that the military cracks down hard only when its own are attacked. Taliban violence against civilians is largely ignored for some reason. The army chief said the other day that the military would drive back the Taliban if they made any further inroads. Why just 'drive back'? These people are merciless and have no qualms about indulging in savagery.

This is precisely the point: The military doesn’t want the Taliban to disappear, only to behave; they are still useful for the various fronts against India, in Afghanistan and in Kashmir. So, we can scarcely be encouraged that the general problem with the Taliban is being dealt with.

[Click on the title above for a link to the original article.]

Graham Usher's insight into the real reason the Pakistani army tolerates the Taliban -- or at least some of them

The most valuable publication on the Taliban situation in Pakistan in a long time is an article by Graham Usher that appeared in the London Review of Books (April 2009). He explains that the real reason the army behaves the way it does in Pakistan -- and despite appearances the army is the actual ruler of Pakistan -- is that the Pakistani army has been 'at war' with India since 1948, that is, since the inception of the country and thus of the army itself. This is why the Pakistani army treats some Taliban as enemies [those that are active against Pakistan] and some of them as friends [those that want to attack Afghanistan]. This is because Afghanistan, in the army's mind, is allied with India. For that reason much of what Karzai does is considered to reflect India's interests and so cannot be taken at face value.

From the army's viewpoint there are good Taliban and bad Taliban. Baitullah Mehsud is an enemy because he is responsible for suicide attacks inside Pakistan against the army. And he is believed to have recruited hundreds of Afghan fighters who are "agents" from the Indian intelligence services -- that is, of the real enemy, India, not Bin Laden.

Jalaluddin Haqqani, on the other hand, is a friend of Pakistan. He directs the "central front" against Afghanistan from bases in North and South Waziristan. Also, Mullah Muhammad Omar, head of the original Taliban, is a friend operating from his bases in Quetta. "They are our friends, not our enemies" says a member of Pakistan's Intelligence Services.

So, if they attack NATO forces or American forces in Afghanistan they are friends of the Pakistani army. If they attack the army or other installations inside Pakistan they are "enemies."

Such is the logic of an army created and shaped by generations of war with its neighbor. What would have to happen for them to realize they have another enemy? What would have to happen for them to see India as a benign neighbor and not an enemy?

Recent reports on the Taliban situation in Pakistan

Some details on the Taliban situation in Pakistan, from recent publications:

Hedieh Mirahmadi in the Huffiington Post [“Picking and Choosing Enemies in Afghanistan,” 4/22/09]

• Richard Holbrook has reached out to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. [Not good news, and in any case a no-win policy anyway; Hekmatyar cannot be trusted.]
• Islamist fighters in Pakistan [where in Pakistan?] have exhumed the corpses of Muslim holy figures and hung their bodies in the city square. These are revered religious figures of Pashtun culture and such blasphemy is correctly attributed to the "Taliban," which is a catchall term for the jihadi fighters. There has also been a rash of killings of traditional Sunni tribal leaders in the area - with reports of up to 120 people murdered - because they won't cede to radical Islamist demands for control of their communities. [This represents a Wahhabi point of view rather than a traditional Afghan or Pakistani view. People in the region commonly venerate the burial places of famous Sufis, as well as even relics of Muhammad; Mullah Muhammad Omar once made good use of Muhammad’s cloak to legitimate his authority. The point is, this move reflects the influence of Arab Wahhabis.]

Ahmed Rashid on BBC [“Disarray on Pakistan Taleban threat” 4/22/09]
• Even though most Pakistanis agree that the Pakistani Taleban and their extremist allies now pose the biggest threat to the Pakistani state since its creation, both the army and the government appear to be in denial of reality and the facts.
• Even though the agreement ignores the constitution by setting up a new legal system in the valley, which is not genuine Islamic law but the Taleban's brutal interpretation of it, Mr Gilani reiterated on 18 April that ''whatever we have done is in accordance with the constitution and there is no need to worry".
• In fact, the majority of Pakistanis are desperately worried, asking how the state could concede [to the Taliban] so quickly.
• The Swat Taleban have invited Osama Bin Laden to settle in Swat.
• On 20 April, Sufi Muhammad, a radical leader who the government and the army have termed as ''a moderate" and whose son in law Fazlullah is the leader of the Swat Taleban, said that democracy, the legal system of the country and civil society should be disbanded as they were all ''systems of infidels".
• The Taleban have now infiltrated western and southern Punjab province with the help of Punjabi extremist groups, the second largest city of Lahore and the southern port city of Karachi. [The significant issue here is the addition of “Punjabi extremists”: where did they come from, and what is their agenda?]
• The army has declined all international and local pressure to curb the spread of the Taleban.
• The Taliban are moving north to take over the Karakoram Highway that links Pakistan to China. [A very strategic place to hold.]
• The army's rationale for doing nothing appears deeply irrational to many Pakistanis. It still insists that India remains the major threat, so 80% of its forces are still aligned on the Indian border
• The army insists that the Americans will soon leave Afghanistan and that Pakistan must be ready with a response to help install a pro-Pakistan government in Kabul.
• Meanwhile two of Pakistan's closest allies, China and Saudi Arabia, have strongly indicated to the government that its continuing tolerance of the Taleban and al-Qaeda on its soil is endangering the national security of these two countries.
• The Pakistani Taleban, even while continuing their penetration of central Pakistan, are also mobilizing fresh recruits from all over the country to go help their Afghan Taleban brothers resist the newly arriving Western troops.

My interview with the Pakistani Spectator

I have been asked by the Pakistani Spectator to notify my readers of my on-line interview with them. It can be found at:
http://www.pakspectator.com/interview-with-blogger-robert-l-canfield/

Pakistani Spectator seems to be a new blog aimed at reaching a wide audience, not only of Pakistanis but also of interested people around the world. The organizers of this blog are interesting to me and I hope to others outside of Pakistan because they represent a very different perspective on the world than often appears in the news about Pakistan. One role of journalism is to draw attention to important events and developments but the result of that can be an undue emphasis on the more horrific events, the extreme viewpoints, the most unseemly elements in a country. I will follow this website because it seems to represent the middle class elements of Pakistan, elements who are sometimes shut out of the news by the importance given to dramatic events and extreme actions taken in the country. I suspect the creators of this website/blog are young and therefore represent a group with high aspirations for their country. They also represent a large proportion of the population, as Pakistan is a very young country, the median age being something less than 21. I wish them success in this ambitious endeavor.

And thanks for the attention given to me and my views. [Click on the title for a link to their home page.]

Thanks for the comments

I want to thank all those who have made comments on the earlier blogs. That there has been that much interest in what I wrote has been a complete surprise.

I do understand the comments of those who object to my characterizations of some of the people mentioned in the blog, and I apologize if I have offended anyone.

What readers of this blog can't know is that Rita and I have a particular and personal admiration for Susan Boyle's achievement, as we have a son whose life-experience has been much like hers. And he happens to be almost the same age. So we read into what she did much that is intensely personal. Being our son's parents has had a profound effect on our lives. I would in no way want to demean anyone in my attempts to express how and why Susan Boyle's achievement touched us so deeply.

Again, thanks for reading it.

Susan Boyle, icon of the private imagination

As I mentioned yesterday, attempts to formulate why and how Susan Boyle's performance captures the imagination will continue. The question reaches fundamental issues of our understanding of ourselves, our experience as human beings. What makes anthropology fun and deeply rewarding is the sense that we are in some sense probing the essential qualities of humanity -- whatever that is, whatever we mean by it. So the struggle of so many to explain why they cry, why they keep coming back to the same event, to watch the same performance, over and over again, displays the sense of mystery deeply embedded within us. These special bursts of public discussion about such a person, such an event, an icon created in a single episode, reveal what resides within us: a continuous rumination over who we are; we are ever seeking to grasp ourselves. What is this peculiar creature, the human being? Creative, inventive, generous, and also cruel, intolerant, self-serving, bitter. All this I can only surmise -- for knowing no one else I have to extrapolate from my own private world. I presume that everyone else like me carries on this internal struggle to understand, manipulating the tools of imagining that are available, the kinds of things we always use to think with: words, gestures, objects. The anthropological task, I take it, is to monitor whatever extrinsic evidences of that internal calque we can find in others. These overt forms are the devices through which the anthropologist gains access to personal mysteries, private experiences -- elements of the human condition that are usually inaccessible. But when, as in the reactions to Susan Boyle, intense personal feelings burst forth in tears that astonish, we discover dimensions of the human moral sensibility that most of us are unprepared to find in ourselves. That makes Susan Boyle a special event as well as a special human being.


COLETTE DOUGLAS HOME, in The Herald, “The beauty that matters is always on the inside,” has the finest formulation on the reasons why Susan Boyle is a cultural phenomenon. Click on the title above for a link to the full statement, but here I reproduce a few statements that well capture some of the reasons that Susan Boyle has become an icon of the moral sensibility of so many.

“[O]nly the pretty are expected to achieve. Not only do you have to be physically appealing to deserve fame; it seems you now have to be good-looking to merit everyday common respect. If, like Susan (and like millions more), you are plump, middle-aged and too poor or too unworldly to follow fashion or have a good hairdresser, you are a non-person. . . .

But then ridicule is nothing new in Susan Boyle's life. She is a veteran of abuse. She was starved of oxygen at birth and has learning difficulties as a result. At school she was slow and had frizzy hair. She was bullied, mostly verbally. . . .

She didn't have boyfriends, is a stranger to romance and has never been kissed. . . . . Singing was her life-raft.

She lived with her parents in a four-bedroom council house and, when her father died a decade ago, she cared for her mother and sang in the church choir. . . . and being a carer isn't a glamorous life, as the hundreds of thousands who do that most valuable of jobs will testify. . . .

But [her frumpiness] is often evidence of a life lived selflessly; of a person so focused on the needs of another that they have lost sight of themselves.

. . . Susan Boyle's mother encouraged her to sing. She wanted her to enter Britain's Got Talent. But the shy Susan hasn't been able to sing at all since her mother's death two years ago. She wasn't sure how her voice would emerge after so long a silence. Happily, it survived its rest.

. . . . Susan is a reminder that it's time we all looked a little deeper. She has lived an obscure but important life. She has been a companionable and caring daughter. It's people like her who are the unseen glue in society; the ones who day in and day out put themselves last. . . .

Susan has been forgiven her looks and been given respect because of her talent. She should always have received it because of the calibre of her character.

Susan Boyle and the power of the moral imagination

Every once in a while great cultural moment happens. Iconic displays of the human imagination seem always to be unpredictable. But when they happen they reveal something about ourselves to ourselves. The Elian Gonzales affair was such a moment. Simply by arriving on the shores of Florida, alone, his mother and others lost at sea as they desperately fled Cuba in a fragile sea craft, Elian provided nothing more than his own presence into which people from many persuasions could invest their opinions about the Cuban question. A child who had essentially nothing to do with it other than his own person, became the focus of an intense public furor. [See Marshall Sahlins, Apologies to Thucydides]

Such a moment has just happened again, only this time it is a little different. A few days ago a 47 year old woman appeared on a talent show in Britain. Someone described her as fumpy. She wore her best dress, something worn earlier to a nephew’s wedding. She had fixed her hair herself. And she came on stage to sing. The hosts and the audience were kind enough, but pervading the whole scenario was a palpable doubt, even condescension, about this woman. She was a pathetic figure, vulnerable. This was an aggressive audience, expressive; they were ready to drive a performer off the stage. The hosts, the talent judges, were clearly dubious. One of the judges asked this woman her name and where she was from. She was Susan Boyle from a small town -- well, a collection of villages, she said. Then he asked what her ambition was. She wanted to be singer. Who would she like to be like?, he asked. Like Elaine Paige. It was easy to regard this woman as tragically unaware of her own limitations, with aspirations that surpassed her ability. And she was now on stage, on TV. Before a huge audience. Here was a disaster in the making. This would be difficult to watch.

She chose to sing Fantine’s song, “I dreamed a dream” from Les Miserables, when Fantine was left alone, unemployed and destitute.

Her first note changed everything. The audience was electrified. As she sang they began to cheer. One of the judges, Amanda Holden [whom I earlier called "a gorgeous blond"; decide for yourself -- certainly not "frumpy" like the woman on stage], folded her hands and held them up to her face, as if hoping desperately, praying, for this woman not to stumble. Everyone seemed to be rooting for her. Some people wept. This is what she sang:

There was a time when men were kind
When their voices were soft
And their words inviting
There was a time when love was blind
And the world was a song
And the song was exciting
There was a time
Then it all went wrong

I dreamed a dream in time gone by
When hope was high
And life worth living
I dreamed that love would never die
I dreamed that God would be forgiving
Then I was young and unafraid
And dreams were made and used and wasted
There was no ransom to be paid
No song unsung, no wine untasted

But the tigers come at night
With their voices soft as thunder
As they tear your hope apart
And they turn your dream to shame

He slept a summer by my side
He filled my days with endless wonder
He took my childhood in his stride
But he was gone when autumn came

And still I dream he'll come to me
That we will live the years together
But there are dreams that cannot be
And there are storms we cannot weather

I had a dream my life would be
So different from this hell I'm living
So different now from what it seemed
Now life has killed the dream I dreamed.

When she was finished the judges were ecstatic. One of them said that at first everyone had been laughing at her but no one was laughing now. Amanda Holden said it was a wonderful moment for her because she knew that everyone there had been against Susan. Susan Boyle was showered with praise.

That was on April 11. On April 15, 2009, when you google “Susan Boyle singer” it gives you 132,000 sites. The clip of her performance, seven minutes, has been watched over 3 ½ million times.

Here is an event that so embodied something profoundly, even personally, gripping for thousands of people that the seven minute clip on UTube is being watched over and over again, by the same people. Susan Boyle’s moment on stage objectifies something buried in the psyche, something in the human moral imagination. The discussion of how and what that could be will be going on for weeks.

Here is one instance:
On popwatch [http://popwatch.ew.com/popwatch/2009/04/susan-boyle-why.html] Lisa Schwarzbaum writes that she is still crying. She plays the YouTube clip over and over again. And she asks herself what every anthropologist should ask: why are you listening again and again? And why are you crying? She proposes an answer, at least for herself: “In our pop-minded culture so slavishly obsessed with packaging -- the right face, the right clothes, the right attitudes, the right Facebook posts -- the unpackaged artistic power of the unstyled, un-hip, un-kissed Ms. Boyle let me feel, for the duration of one blazing showstopping ballad, the meaning of human grace. She pierced my defenses. She reordered the measure of beauty. And I had no idea until tears sprang how desperately I need that corrective . . .”

Buried within the human psyche are feelings, yearnings, anxieties too deep for words, usually. Only sometimes do we see it in ourselves. Always it is something outside ourselves that touches us, somehow, where we feel most deeply. At such moments we remember that we are humans -- not mere living creatures, but human beings, profoundly and deeply shaped by a moral sensibility so powerful that it breaks through our inhibitions; it can burst out, explode into public view, to our own astonishment. And sometimes that objective form -- a person, an event, an object, a song -- embodies deeply felt sensibilities for a lot of us at once, so that we discover how much we share in our private worlds, worlds otherwise inaccessible to anyone one else. It becomes a social event, so we can all rejoice, and weep, together.

Stratfor's assessment of affairs in Pakistan: dangerous

I neglected to post Stratfor’s assessment of the situation in Pakistan as of the 13th. Any way you cut it, the decisions being made in Pakistan have ominous implications, not only for Pakistan but for the region and the rest of the world. Pakistan’s location on the other side of the globe can mislead those of us in the western world. In this world – when trillions of dollars are sloshing around the world in a day, and news reaches almost any location at the speed of light, and millions of dollars worth of fuel and other material goods are nourishing growing numbers of people around the world every day – in such a world no one can presume that the dominance of criminality in one country has little significance for the rest. What’s going on in Pakistan is serious.

From: Stratfor, April 13, 2009 12:38:55 PM PDT

Pakistan: A Peace Deal Becomes Law
April 13, 2009 | 1936 GMT

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on April 13 signed the Nizam-i- Adl (System of Justice) Regulation into law. Earlier in the day, Parliament overwhelmingly approved the regulation, which stems from a Feb. 17 agreement between the provincial government of the North- West Frontier Province and the jihadist movement in the Swat region that calls for a shariah-based legal system to be implemented in the area in exchange for an end to the insurgency. Islamabad had been hesitant to approve the deal between Peshawar and the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi (TNSM) ? the jihadist group based in the greater Swat region ? saying the central government wanted the TNSM militia to lay down its weapons before Islamabad endorsed the deal.

The Nizam-i-Adl Regulation becoming law without the militants laying down their arms is thus far the most significant example of the Pakistani state?s retreat in the face of a powerful jihadist insurgency. It underscores the extent to which the state has been weakened and the degree of incoherence within both the state and society regarding the jihadist threat and how to combat it. The expectation is that the deal will bring an end to the militancy in the greater Swat area, and that Talibanization can be confined to that region.

However, the TNSM has no intention of limiting its sphere of influence to the Swat region. Therefore, this development will only boost the confidence of the Taliban and their transnational allies in Pakistan and beyond. The Swat area effectively will become an emirate from which a wider Talibanization campaign can be launched. In many ways, this has already begun, with the Swat-based insurgents projecting power into adjoining districts such as Buner.

Not only will Pakistan see greater domestic turmoil as a result of the passage of this law, but the new regulation will further aggravate tensions between Islamabad and Washington, complicating Western efforts to combat the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The United States may even move to expand its unilateral airstrikes and covert operations deeper into Pakistani territory.
© Copyright 2009 Stratfor. All rights reserved.

Pakistan's further slide into the abyss

For years I have been saying that it couldn't get worse than this -- and it gets worse. The situation in Pakistan is going from bad to worse. What is most astounding is the inability of the Pakistani leadership to deal with the rising power of the Taliban and other like-minded Sunni radical groups essentially cultivated by the government. Now the government capitulates and wants to call it a victory. I collect here some interesting statements on the rapid descent of this proud country. I grieve and pray for God to save them.

Here is what Bill Roggio [The Long War Journal] has to say:


"Pakistan signs sharia bill into law"
By Bill RoggioApril 13, 2009 4:31 PM

The Pakistani government has approved the controversial bill that will allow for the implementation of sharia, or Islamic law, into a large region of northwestern Pakistan.

President Asif Ali Zardari signed the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation into law today after a majority of the Pakistani Parliament passed the bill. The regulation allows for the establishment of sharia courts in the Malakand Division, an administrative region that encompasses more than one-third of the Northwest Frontier Province and includes the districts of Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir, Chitral, and Kohistan.

The sharia law was referred to the Pakistani government after the government negotiated an agreement known as the Malakand Accord with the Taliban in Swat. The agreement calls for the withdrawal of the Pakistani Army from Swat, the release all Taliban prisoners, the withdrawal of any criminal cases against Taliban leaders and fighters, and the imposition of sharia. The government agreed to the terms of the Malakand Accord after the military suffered its third defeat against the Swat Taliban in two years.

The Taliban had threatened to renew the violence in Swat if the sharia law was not signed by President Zardari. Amir Izzat, a spokesman for the pro-Taliban Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed [TNSM or the Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammed's Law] threatened to declare any member of parliament as a non-Muslim if they voted against the law. Sufi Mohammed, the leader of the TNSM, which serves as a front for the Taliban in northwestern Pakistan, walked out on the peace agreement after bashing Zardari for not signing the sharia regulation into law.

President Zardari had said he refused to sign the Nizam-e-Adl Regulation into law until the security in Swat was restored. As recently as April 9, Husain Haqqani, Pakistan's Ambassador to the US, said President Zardari would not sign the regulation into law.

"The president of Pakistan has not signed the agreement and not approved the agreement yet because he’s waiting for the TNSM to fulfill its end of the bargain, which was, essentially, to make sure that the Taliban — whose leader happens to be his son-in-law — they do not continue to use force," Haqqani told a forum in Washington, according to The Washington Independent. "Since that has not happened, the agreement has not been enforced."

But the Taliban have repeatedly violated the ceasefire in Swat. Taliban forces have attacked military convoys and captured soldiers and government officials. Most recently, on April 11, a Taliban force wounded three security personnel after ambushing a convoy in Swat. Meanwhile, the Swat Taliban have advanced on neighboring Buner and are now in full control of the district, which is just 60 miles from the capital of Islamabad.

The Malakand Accord and the subsequent signing of the sharia law have emboldened the Taliban and the multitude of Islamist groups in Pakistan. Islamist political parties are now calling for the imposition of sharia throughout the country.

Here is a comment on this entry by one of the bloggers:

Posted by Micah at April 14, 2009 1:35 AM ET:

Interesting, but the media and everyone for the most part seems to miss the fact that Taliban completely took over Buner province sunday afternoon and the media was turned the other way after they assumed the incident ended 24 hours earlier upon their saturday afternoon withdraw. India Times and a couple Pakistan publications seem to be the only ones who caught the news.

Obviously President Zardari signed this bill as a reaction to the Buner take-over on Sunday, which may be the fastest consolidation of power so far in the battle for the north-west; AND THE MEDIA MISSED IT!!! Below is my blog, most of which is news straight from my contacts in Buner:


I have just got news from my friends in Buner district (that area i stayed in with the Pashtos that neighbors Swat). Friday afternoon, as stated in the media, Taliban crossed the mountains into the district through the same pass we took from Swat. Only about 100 entered to setup a meeting; a very small number. They agreed to pullout of Buner and leave Saturday afternoon after a Jirga meeting was held. The media was very updated on this, and reported the Taliban's pullout of Buner on Saturday. However, the media seems to have overlooked what happened the next day and forgot about the whole ordeal assuming it was over. Well it didn't end. Twenty four hours later, the Taliban, with large swaths of fighters, returned and may have consolidated the fastest spread of their power in this whole war...

Yesterday, around noon, thousands of Talibs poured into Buner district a day after they stated their official departure. In a period of around 5 hours, Taliban took the entire provincial province. There was no resistance at all, Pakistani police and military were ordered not to interfere or cause any tension. The Pir Baba shrine has been shut down (as that is considered a site of idolization according to the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islam). The Taliban control 100% percent of the district. According to my friend in Pir Baba, the Taliban are everywhere, they are burning televisions, shutting down DVD shops, and now are beginning youth-recruiting campaigns. My friend is very worried, as he works for a local school in Pir Baba with an IT institute. The school is locked and no one is going to it. Women's classes stopped about 6 months ago when there were fears that Taliban were beginning to look into the prospects of expanding into Buner district.

So, this is HUGE news, and its not in the news at all, unfortunately. The media turned its eye away when they assumed it was all over on Saturday afternoon when the few Talibs left Buner. Well, Taliban are in complete control of it now and its another world than when I was there last June. They are everywhere, at guard posts replacing what was before police check points, are driving around on pickup trucks with loudspeakers announcing the implementation of Shariah courts as well as asking the youth to join.

Another strange change is that Buneris have been absolutely against the Taliban for years, for the trouble they caused in Swat. However, since there is no war in Buner and the Taliban took it over without any fighting or harm to the local population, strangely enough, the Taliban are getting public support and actually gaining more popularity than would have been expected (not making this up. My friend is telling me this first-hand, and he is against the Taliban who pose a potentially direct threat to his employment in the IT center at his school in Pir Baba, if it is to be discovered). One of the reasons for this change of mind amongst the public in Buner is because of the Pakistan government's lack of development in Buner (it is a very poor district that never obtained the same development as Swat did, thanks to its tourist industry Swat has benefited from through most of its existence until two years ago. Buner, being part of the lower Swat valley (not the provincial district itself though) has always sort of been looked at as the "poor man's Swat valley.")

I still can't believe this is happening. I wonder how many days it will take the media to discover this, and I wonder why something as big as this has not been reported in the media. Maybe because this is a HUGE embarrassment for the Pakistani government and they are trying to figure out what to do with the situation before throwing the spotlight on it? I have no idea. Supposedly the Taliban are talking of Islamabad being the next stop (they certainly are about 100km closer than they were 2 days ago), but this could just be exaggerated euphoria considering their pride has probably swelled from this latest take-over of Buner district (afterall, they still have not yet taken Peshawar).

However, if it is true that Taliban is changing its public-image and is obtaining acceptance in Buner, it will become a major recruiting grounds for Taliban, as Buner district never obtained the same amount of educational and economic development as Swat or even Mardan district, and the Taliban's seeding of madrasa's will have a huge effect in their recruiting mission, as these madrasas teach the much desirable applicable sciences and literacy teachings, in addition to Islamic studies (Deobandi) and small-arms weapon training. I suggest USAID's project in Peshawar immediately start throwing a development plan together in the much ignored Buner district, or Taliban will be filling in this missing gap VERY fast. In fact, it may already be too late.

If you want my theory, i think the 100 or so Taliban that were sent into the countryside of Buner on Friday were just an experiment to see how Buneris would react to their presence. There was a slight skirmish, but nothing major. When the Jirga meeting was held, it was another test to see how they would be reacted to politically among the elders of the Jirga, so when they agreed to pull out Saturday, they really just went back to Swat district to report their impressions and general consensus. When the Taliban determined they faced very minuscule resistance from police and Buneri civilians, they saw this as the green light to send in thousands of fighters 24 hours later on Sunday afternoon, knowing all too well they could take the province without any risk of retaliation against them.

In a mere few hours hours, Buner district was consolidated by Taliban. It took a massive two+ years for this same Taliban movement, lead by Mulauna Fazlullah, to consolidate it's power over Swat province. Amazing. What I find even more astonishing is the sheer level of lowness in the Pakistan military's morale. Technically, the Swat-truce is not official yet, because President Zardari has refrained from signing it (mostly because of the controversy and America's reaction if he does). It goes to show both sides desire the truce and are recognizing it despite the fact that it officially not active at all, and the moderate broker of the truce, Sufi Mohammad, pulled out of the deal one week ago after frustration of the government's delay to make it official. It is astonishing that both sides are still abiding by the truce and not using its "unnofficial" status as a legitimate reason to resume the fighting against one another.

Since both sides are recognizing the truce, despite the fact that its non-existent without Zardari's signature, Taliban is most likely in direct violation it's agreements (officially or unofficially) in that they are running an actively armed militia in the streets of Buner's public life; while shots were not fired in obtaining their hold on the district, they still took power with the show of force as an active militant group. Therefore, the military has the full right to intervene with armed force and still recognize the agreements stated in abiding by this truce. The fact that they have not, and Taliban have just taken over Buner district as if its a freebie, goes to show the military is finished, has no desire to fight, and the Taliban still have the drive to continue the armed struggle with high-morale, if the military were to react in such a way. A further embarrassment and a clear admission of the Pakistani military that they have failed and surrendered to the Taliban's will. The truce, which both sides recognize, provided the Taliban with their main desire to implement Shariah, but failed to disarm the Taliban as an armed movement in the public sphere, which was the main terms the Pakistani military demanded as the trade off for the truce to go into effect.

In reality, since the military did not intervene in reaction to their demands failing to be met by the the deal brokered by Sufi Mohammad, the only benefit the military gained was the relaxation of not having to go to the front lines any longer to fight another battle; if they cared about the current violation in Buner and the Taliban's greater grasp on power, the military would have done exactly that: reacted with force. Instead, in a mere few hours, the Taliban did in Buner what took them over two years to do in Swat. Which district is next, and will the military refrain from trying to repel it in any way?

Pathetic. If the military reacted to the small contingent of Talibs who were sent into Buner on Friday, the Taliban may not have been so quick to just send huge fleets into Buner 48 hours later. As far as the deal of the truce is concerned, Taliban got everything they wanted without compromising anything. The military obtained nothing for the Pakistani government; they just don't have the drive to fight anymore.

Posted by Micah at April 14, 2009 1:38 AM ET:

Oh, and when I say "yesterday", I am actually referring to Sunday since I wrote this original blog on a monday.

The media seems to have turned its back away from the incident after Saturday afternoon (April 11) when the small contingent of Talibs departed Swat, and totally missed what happened Sunday (APril 12).
. . .

Oh and about Zardari, once again i wrote it before he signed the bill, and I don't have time to edit right now.

Anyways, it seems the Taliban sent more fighters in Saturday, agreed to depart, but sent in swaths more on Sunday and took power Sunday. According to my contacts. On Saturday, the Pir Baba shrine actually was not occupied by the Taliban (it was closed as a security measure by police), but was occupied by Taliban only as recently as Sunday, as well as their presence in the center of Hazrat Pir Baba.


Here is what the New York Times has to say:


April 14, 2009
Allied Militants Threaten Pakistan’s Populous Heart
By SABRINA TAVERNISE, RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and ERIC SCHMITT

This article was reported by Sabrina Tavernise, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Eric Schmitt and written by Ms. Tavernise.

DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan — Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab, the province that is home to more than half of Pakistanis, reinvigorating an alliance that Pakistani and American authorities say poses a serious risk to the stability of the country.

The deadly assault in March in Lahore, Punjab’s capital, against the Sri Lankan cricket team, and the bombing last fall of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the national capital, were only the most spectacular examples of the joint campaign, they said.

Now police officials, local residents and analysts warn that if the government does not take decisive action, these dusty, impoverished fringes of Punjab could be the next areas facing the insurgency. American intelligence and counterterrorism officials also said they viewed the developments with alarm.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand the gravity of the issue,” said a senior police official in Punjab, who declined to be idenfitied because he was discussing threats to the state. “If you want to destabilize Pakistan, you have to destabilize Punjab.”

As American drone attacks disrupt strongholds of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal areas, the insurgents are striking deeper into Pakistan — both in retaliation and in search of new havens.

Telltale signs of creeping militancy abound in a belt of towns and villages near here that a reporter visited last week. Militants have gained strength considerably in the district of Dera Ghazi Khan, which is a gateway both to Taliban-controlled areas and the heart of Punjab, the police and local residents say. Many were terrified.

Some villages, just north of here, are so deeply infiltrated by militants that they are already considered no-go zones by their neighbors.

In at least five towns in southern and western Punjab, including the midsize hub of Multan, barber shops, music stores and Internet cafes offensive to the militants’ strict interpretation of Islam have received threats. Traditional ceremonies that include drumming and dancing have been halted in some areas. Hard-line ideologues have addressed large crowds to push their idea of Islamic revolution. Sectarian attacks, dormant here since the 1990s, have erupted once again.

“It’s going from bad to worse,” said a senior police official in Dera Ghazi Khan. “They are now more active. These are the facts.”

American officials agreed. Bruce Riedel, who led the Obama administration’s recently completed strategy review of Pakistan and Afghanistan, said the Taliban now had “extensive links into the Punjab.”

“You are seeing more of a coalescence of these militant groups,” said Mr. Riedel, a former C.I.A. official. “Connections that have always existed are becoming tighter and more public than they have in the past.”

The Punjabi militant groups have had links with the Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun tribesmen, since the 1980s. Some of the Punjabi groups are veterans of Pakistan’s state-sponsored insurgency against Indian forces in Kashmir. Others made targets of Shiites.

Under pressure from the United States, former President Pervez Musharraf cut back state support for the Punjabi groups. They either went underground or migrated to the tribal areas, where they deepened their ties with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

At least 20 militants killed in American strikes in the tribal areas since last summer were Punjabi, according to people from the tribal areas and Pakistani officials. One Pakistani security official estimated that 5 percent to 10 percent of militants in the tribal regions could be Punjabi.

The alliance is based on more than shared ideology. “These are tactical alliances,” said a senior American counterterrorism official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss intelligence matters. The Pashtun Taliban and Arab militants, who are part of Al Qaeda, have money, sanctuary, training sites and suicide bombers. The Punjabi militants can provide logistical help in Punjabi cities, like Lahore, including handling bombers and target reconnaissance.

The cooperation between the groups intensified greatly after the government’s siege of Islamic hard-liners at the Red Mosque in Islamabad, in mid-2007, Pakistani and American security officials say. The siege has since become a rallying cry.

One such joint operation, an American security official said, was the Marriott bombing in Islamabad in September, which killed more than 50 people.

As this cooperation intensifies, places like Dera Ghazi Khan are particularly vulnerable. This frontier town is home to a combustible mix of worries: poverty, a growing phalanx of hard-line religious schools and a uranium processing plant that is a part of Pakistan’s nuclear program.

It is also strategically situated at the intersection of two main roads. One is a main artery into Pakistan’s heartland, in southern Punjab. The other connects Baluchistan Province in the west to the North-West Frontier Province, both Taliban strongholds.

“We are being cornered in a blind alley,” said Mohammed Ali, a local landlord. “We can’t breathe easily.”

Attacks intended to intimidate and sow sectarian strife are more common. The police point to a suicide bombing in Dera Ghazi Khan on Feb. 5. Two local Punjabis, with the help of Taliban backers, orchestrated the attack, which killed 29 people at a Shiite ceremony, the local police said.

The authorities arrested two men as masterminds on April 6: Qari Muhammad Ismail Gul, the leader of a local madrasa; and Ghulam Mustafa Kaisrani, a jihadi who posed as a salesman for a medical company.

They belonged to a banned Punjabi group called Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, but were tied through phone calls to two deputies of the Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, the police said.

“The phone numbers they call are in Waziristan,” said a police official, referring to the Taliban base in the tribal areas. “They are working together hand in glove.” One of the men had gone for training in Waziristan last summer, the police said. The operations are well-supported. Mr. Kaisrani had several bank transfers worth about $11 million from his Pakistani account, the authorities said.

Local crimes, including at least two recent bank robberies in Dera Ghazi Khan, were also traced to networks of Islamic militants, officials said.

“The money that’s coming in is huge,” said Zulfiqar Hameed, head of investigations for the Lahore Police Department. “When you go back through the chain of the transaction, you invariably find it’s been done for money.”

After the suicide attack here, the police confiscated a 20-minute inspirational video, titled “Revenge,” for the Red Mosque, which gave testimonials from suicide bombers in different cities and post-attack images.

Umme Hassan, the wife of a fiery preacher who was killed during the Red Mosque siege, now frequently travels to south Punjab, to rally the faithful. She has made 12 visits in the past several months before cheering crowds and showing emotional clips of the attack, said a Punjabi official who has been monitoring her visits.

“She claimed that they would bring Islamic revolution in three months,” said Umar Draz, who attended a rally in Muzzafargarh.

The situation in south and west Punjab is still far from that in the Swat Valley, a part of North-West Frontier Province that is now fully under Taliban control after the military agreed to a truce in February. But there are strong parallels.

The Taliban here exploit many of the same weaknesses that have allowed them to expand in other areas: an absent or intimidated police force; a lack of attention from national and provincial leaders; a population steadily cowed by threats, or won over by hard-line mullahs who usurp authority by playing on government neglect and poverty.

In Shadan Lund, a village just north of here, militants are openly demanding Islamic law, or Shariah, said Jan Sher, whose brother is a teacher there. “The situation is sharply going toward Swat,” Mr. Sher said. He and others said the single biggest obstacle to stopping the advance of militancy was the attitudes of Pakistanis themselves, whose fury at the United States has led to blind support for everyone who goes against it.

Shabaz Sharif, the chief minister of Punjab, said he was painfully aware of the problems of insurgent infiltration and was taking steps to restore people’s faith in government, including plans for new schools and hospitals. “Hearts and minds must be won,” he said in an interview Monday. “If this struggle fails, this country has no future.”

But people complain that landowners and local politicians have done nothing to stop the advance and, in some cases, even assist the militants by giving money to some of the religious schools.

“The government is useless,” said Mr. Ali, the local landlord. “They live happy, secure lives in Lahore. Their children study abroad. They only come here to contest elections.”

The police are left alone to stop the advance. But in Punjab, as in much of the rest of Pakistan, they are spread unevenly, with little presence in rural areas. Out of 160,000 police officers in Punjab, fewer than 60,000 are posted in rural areas, leaving frontier stations in districts virtually unprotected, police officials said.

Locals feel helpless. When a 15-year-old boy vanished from a madrasa in a village near here recently — his classmates said to go on jihad — his uncle could not afford to go look for him, let alone confront the powerful men who run the madrasa.

“We are simple people,” the man said. “What can we do?”

Sabrina Tavernise reported from Dera Ghazi Khan, Pakistan; Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Peshawar, Pakistan; and Eric Schmitt from Washington. Mark Mazzetti contributed reporting from Washington, Waqar Gillani from Dera Ghazi Khan, and Pir Zubair Shah from Peshawar.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

Imperious realities of an ever smaller world

The diverse peoples of the world are being obliged, by ever stronger and more imperious realities, to live together as neighbors. No wonder that so many peoples around the world are recoiling at what they see happening around them. The following two quotations refer to two different perceptual worlds. Putting them next to each other we can see how asymmetric are the understandings of those who could make portentous decisions for millions of people.


On American priorities: “... there are more musicians playing in military bands than there are diplomats working around the globe. The Pentagon’s budget is 24 times larger than the State Department’s and USAID combined . . .” [Dexter Filkins, NYTimes 4/11/09] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/12/weekinreview/12filkins.html?ref=todayspaper


On Taliban perceptions: "We hate democracy," Sufi told a crowd of thousands of followers in Mingora after the ratification of the Malakand Accord was announced in mid-February. "We want the occupation of Islam in the entire world. Islam does not permit democracy or election." [Sufi Muhammad, spokesman for an organization believed to be a front for the Taliban, quoted by The Long War Journal] http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/04/analysis_pakistani_t.php

Roggio on the Taliban April 11 09

April 11, 2009

Bill Roggio [The Long War Journal] gets his information from personal sources as well as published ones and these days he seems to have the best news on what’s going on in tribal territory – now Taliban territory – in Pakistan. Today’s report is that the Taliban are moving on Buner. His last two reports tell us that the Taliban are expanding their influence in the Tribal Areas, today moving on Buner and yesterday announcing their renunciation of the Malakand Accords previously made with the army in Swat.

Here are the two articles:
=========
http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/04/taliban_move_on_bune.php
“Taliban move on Buner despite promise to withdraw.” By Bill Roggio April 10, 2009 9:32 PM
The Taliban takeover of the district of Buner in Pakistan's insurgency-plagued Northwest Frontier Province has accelerated as forces are fanning out through the region unopposed.
Security forces and the tribal lashkars, or militias, have not resisted the Taliban advance. "They have taken control of vast areas in Buner," a witness told Dawn "They are freely moving around while police and other law-enforcement personnel remain confined to their posts."
Police were ordered not to fight the Taliban, an officer said. "We have been asked by our seniors not to interfere with the Taliban," an officer said, while claiming the Taliban carried advanced weapons.
The Taliban are patrolling the main roads in the district and are just outside the main town of Daggar, according to Dawn. Taliban fighters have taken control of the homes of tribal leaders who raised the lashkars and threatened to punish them for opposing the advance.
The local tribes in Buner raised lashkars earlier this week and clashed with the Taliban as they entered the district. Sixteen Taliban fighters, three policemen, and two tribal fighters were reported to have been killed.
Taliban fighters have begun to enforce their radical brand of sharia, or Islamic law, in Buner. "Militants set on fire TV sets, pictures and paintings and audio and video cassettes before the Friday prayers," Dawn reported. "They locked the [Pir Baba] shrine, stopping followers of Pir Baba from visiting the place." Pir Baba was a Sufi saint. The Taliban have targeted Sufi shrines during their takeover of Northwestern Pakistan.
The push to overtake Buner comes just one day after the Taliban agreed to withdraw from Buner. Yesterday, Syed Mohammad, the Malakand Division Commissioner, said the Taliban would pull out of Buner on April 10. Instead the Taliban used the negotiations as cover to finish their push into the defenseless district.
Pakistani tribes unable to resist the Taliban onslaught
Last fall, the Pakistani government and the military encouraged tribal leaders to raise lashkars to oppose the spread of the Taliban. Since the beginning of 2008, Pakistani tribes organized lashkars in regions in Bajaur, Peshawar, Khyber, Swat, Dir, Buner, and Lakki Marwat. The tribes have had some success in driving the Taliban from local areas by conducting patrols and burning down the homes of Taliban fighters and their supporters, but ultimately failed to halt the Taliban advance.
"The Taliban is more vicious, more motivated, and more capable than the tribes," a US military officer who closely follows the situation in northwestern Pakistan told The Long War Journal. "Time and time again, the Taliban has ruthlessly crushed any resistance. It doesn't matter if it is the tribes, the police, the Frontier Corps, or the Army, the Taliban continues to gain ground."
The Taliban have viciously responded to efforts by tribal leaders to oppose the spread of extremism. Tribal opposition has been violently attacked and defeated in Peshawar, Dir, Arakzai, Khyber, and Swat. Suicide bombers have struck at tribal meetings held at mosques, schools, hotels, and homes.
The Taliban have also made examples of local leaders who have dared to resist. In Swat, the Taliban executed a local tribal leader named Pir Samiullah, then returned to the village to dig up his body and hang it in the town square. The villagers were warned not to remove his body or they would face the same fate.
Samiullah's tribe was the showcase for Pakistan's "awakening," the indigenous tribal uprising against the Taliban modeled after Iraq's Sunni resistance to al Qaeda and allied jihadi groups. The Swat tribal resistance collapsed with Samiullah's death and desecration.
Problems with manpower, training, geography, coordination between the tribes, and support from the military and government plague the tribal efforts to oppose the Taliban.
The Pakistani tribes are operating as distinct, local fighting forces with no central coordination, while the Taliban can coordinate their activities across the northwest and even from inside eastern Afghanistan. The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, Baitullah Mehsud's unified Taliban command, was established to share manpower and resources and to coordinate activities.
"The tribes are limited by geography, the TTP [Pakistani Taliban] is not," a senior US military intelligence official told The Long War Journal in September 2008 [see LWJ report: Pakistan engages the tribes in effort to fight the Taliban]. "Moreover, the Taliban out-number and out-gun them by more than 20 to 1. The tribes may achieve tactics success in some areas, but likely will fail to achieve strategic success."
The problems are complicated by the tribes' unwillingness to cooperate with the government and the military. "We keep the government away," a senior tribal leader in Lakki Marwat told Geo News last fall.
The tribes fear cooperation with the government will further turn the Taliban and sympathetic tribes against them. "If we became part of the government they would become an excuse, a liability, a rallying cry against us," the Lakki Marwat tribal leader said. Similar sentiments were expressed by Buner tribal leaders earlier this week. This attitude prevents the military from providing the needed security to oppose massed Taliban attacks.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/04/swat_peace_agreement.php

“Swat peace agreement collapses”
By Bill Roggio April 9, 2009 8:49 AM

The Swat Taliban have withdrawn from the two-month-old peace agreement, citing the central government's unwillingness to sign the legislation that will impose sharia courts in the Malakand Division.

The peace agreement, known as the Malakand Accord, put an end to military operations in Swat and the surrounding regions and established sharia, or Islamic courts. The Malakand Accord was imposed in Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir, Chitral, and Kohistan, a region that encompasses more than one-third of the Northwest Frontier Province.

Sufi Mohammed, the leader of the radical pro-Taliban Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammed [TNSM or the Movement for the Enforcement of Mohammed's Law], recently called off the peace agreement and ended all peace camps in the region. Sufi blamed President Asif Ali Zardari for failing to sign into federal law the legislation to establish sharia courts and blamed Zardari for any repercussions.

"From now on, President Zardari will be responsible for any situation in Swat," Sufi said, according to Dawn. "The provincial government is sincere and our agreement with the provincial government is intact, but we are ending our peace camp."

Sufi claimed to have eschewed violence after being released from prison in November 2007 as a condition of a similar failed peace agreement in Swat. Sufi led more than 10,000 Pakistanis into Afghanistan after the US invasion in 2001. Mullah Fazlullah, the radical anti-government cleric behind the insurgency and terror attacks in Swat, is his son-in-law.

The Swat Taliban and Sufi's TNSM maintained very close links to the radical administration of the Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, the pro-Taliban mosque in the heart of Islamabad whose followers enforced sharia and kidnapped policemen just one mile from the seat of government. The Pakistani military stormed the Lal Masjid in July 2007 after a several-month standoff. More than a hundred followers and more than a dozen soldiers were killed in the battle.

In recent interviews, Sufi has declared his hatred for democracy and the West, and described Mullah Omar's regime in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 as "ideal."

Sufi is the father-in-law of Mullah Fazlullah, the Swat Taliban leader who is responsible for nearly two years of bloody violence in Swat that killed hundreds police and paramilitary troops and caused the exodus of more than 500,000 of Swat's estimated 1.5 million residents. During the fighting between the Swat Taliban and government forces, the Swat Taliban targeted police officers, tribal leaders, and politicians. Family members of government officials and tribal leaders were killed, and their homes were torched. Suicide attacks and beheadings were commonplace in Swat during the fighting.

The military ceased operations in Swat in February 2009 after it failed to dislodge the Taliban. Sufi brokered a peace agreement between the government and the Taliban. Under the agreement, the government has committed to implement sharia, end the military campaign, and release Taliban prisoners, while the Taliban agreed to end attacks. But the Taliban has violated the agreement several times: the Taliban kidnapped the district coordinating officer and his bodyguards, murdered two soldiers, and captured a Frontier Corps officer and several of his men. In addition, the Taliban never gave up its weapons and continues to conduct armed patrols and manage checkpoints in some regions of Swat. Yet the government has failed to respond to these violations of the accord and instead has released more than 50 Taliban leaders and fighters from custody.

The collapse of the Swat accord takes place as the Swat Taliban are working to take the neighboring district of Buner by force. More than 100 Taliban fighters entered Buner on April 5. Just two days later, the Taliban clashed with local militias and police who are attempting to halt the Taliban advance. Five police and tribal fighters and 16 Taliban were reported killed in the clash, but the Taliban have continued to move through Buner.

Egregious criminality of the Iranian government

Today, 60 Minutes aired an interview with an Iranian who was imprisoned and tortured in Iran because he was photographed in a demonstration and his picture was placed on the cover of the Economist Magazine. Ahmad Batebi was one of what is believed to be thousands who are held in Iranian prisons for political reasons. Not only that, they torture their prisoners. And they make the process of execution as painful and prolonged as possible.
Batebi reports that when he was in prison they beat him on the feet and back with a cable and beat him on the testicles. When he fainted they slashed his skin and rubbed salt into his wounds.

Other forms of torture that were mentioned by 60 Minutes:
• Hanging by pulling the victims up slowly so their necks would not be broken but would be awake as they strangled to death.
• Partly burying people in the ground before they are stoned by rocks that are not too big so that the victim will die slowly.
The point seems in some cases to be to force confessions and in other cases to terrorize the populace from displaying any dissent.

Wherever such brutal practices take place they deserve the highest condemnation of the world. The claim to be acting on God's behalf, as the Iranian state avers, adds to the egregiousness of their criminality.

Another list displaying the conflicted society of Pakistan

Reuters today provides a list of the "militant violence" that has taken place in Pakistan since December 2007. It is a convenient list because it reveals how many targets the extremist insurgents have. The list does not include many other occasions of abuse of human beings -- like the flogging of a 17 year old girl in Swat. We can only grieve for those who have to live in such a world. For most Americans it seems so alien, so far away -- while in the mean time they have their own problems: gunmen lay in wait for police officers in Philadelphia and an estranged man attacks the only world he knew, a center for habiltating immigrants. RLC

TIMELINE - Attacks destabilise strife-torn Pakistan

Sun Apr 5, 2009 10:50am BST

(Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up in a religious centre for minority Shi'ite Muslims in central Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least 17 people, a day after a deadly suicide attack in the capital, officials said.

Militant violence has surged in nuclear-armed Pakistan in the last two years, with numerous attacks on security forces and government and Western targets. Following is a timeline of major attacks in Pakistan since late 2007:

October 19, 2007 - At least 139 people are killed in a suicide bomb attack on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's motorcade as she is driven through the financial capital of Karachi at the end of eight years of exile. She was unhurt.

December 21 - A suicide bomber kills at least 41 people in a mosque in Charsadda district, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), during the Muslim Eid festival prayers.

December 27 - Bhutto is killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in northern garrison town of Rawalpindi. At least 16 others are killed.

February 29, 2008 - A suicide attack on a police funeral kills 40 people in the turbulent northwestern district of Swat, 160 km (100 miles) from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

March 2 - At least 40 people are killed as suicide bomber attacks a gathering of tribal elders in Darra Adam Khel, a northwestern tribal region.

March 11 - Two suicide car bombers kill 24, most of them in an attack on a government security office in the country's second largest city, Lahore, near the Pakistan-India border.

March 15 - A bomb attack at an Italian restaurant in Islamabad, a favourite hangout for foreigners, kills a Turkish woman and wounds several others, including four FBI agents.

August 19 - Suspected suicide bomber kills 23 in compound of hospital in Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP, southwest of Islamabad, as Shi'ite Muslims protest a leader's killing.

August 21 - Two suicide bombers blow themselves up outside the main defence industry complex in Wah, 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Islamabad. Nearly 50 people are killed and about 70 wounded.

September 20 - Suicide truck bomb attack blamed on Islamist militants kills 55 people, destroys Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

December 5 - A car bomb kills at least 20 people and wounds scores in Peshawar, capital of NWFP.

December 28 - At least 30 people are killed in a suicide car bomb blast at a polling station near Buner, in the NWFP, during a by-election for a provincial assembly.

February 5, 2009 - At least 24 people are killed in a suspected suicide bombing near Shi'ite mosque in Dera Ghazi Khan, central Pakistan.

February 20 - Suicide bomber kills 27 people and wounds 65 in an attack on a funeral procession for a Shi'ite Muslim killed a day earlier in Dera Ismail Khan.

March 3 - Gunmen attack a bus carrying Sri Lanka's cricket team outside a Lahore stadium, killing seven people, including six policemen and a driver, and wounding six of the cricketers and a British coach.

March 27 - A suicide bomber kills 37 people when he blows himself up in a crowded Pakistani mosque near the Afghan border. Among the dead are 14 policemen and paramilitary soldiers.

March 30 - Militants armed with guns and grenades storm a police training centre in Lahore killing eight recruits, wounding scores and holding off police and troops for eight hours. The attack is claimed by Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud. Four militants are killed and three arrested.

April 5 - A suicide bomber blows himself up in a religious centre for minority Shi'ite Muslims in Chakwal in central Pakistan. At least 17 people are killed and around 11 seriously wounded. The attack comes a day after a suicide attack in Islamabad killed eight paramilitary troops in Islamabad.

(Writing by David Cutler and Carl Bagh; Additional writing by Jijo Jacob, Editing by Dean Yates)

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