Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [272]
The TNSM/Taleban forces which created this mayhem do not seem to have been especially well armed, at least to judge by the captured weapons which the army showed me in Mingora. As one would expect, their most dangerous asset by far was the Improvised Explosive Device (IED), several of which were on display, in some cases with remotecontrol mechanism. There were several dozen AK-47s and a few rocket-propelled grenades. However, there were also a large number of old bolt-action rifles, shotguns and pistols, some of them dating back to the Victorian era. In Swat at least it does not seem to have been TNSM/ Taleban weaponry that brought them their successes, but their ability to melt into the population, strike at unguarded or lightly guarded targets, terrify the police into inactivity, and run rings round the army.
This violent stand-off with the army in Swat continued until the negotiation of the Nizam-e-Adl agreement in February 2009, by which Shariah law became the only legal code in the Malakand Division. This agreement was welcomed by the great majority of ordinary Pakistanis with whom I have spoken, and the overwhelming majority of Swatis. In the case of the Swatis, this was not only because they wanted peace between the Taleban and the army, but also because they actively prefer the Shariah to the Pakistani legal system. Indeed, as of early 2010 the Nizam-e-Adl is still in force in Swat, and most people wish for it to remain so.
Interestingly, however, Fazlullah and the local TNSM/Taleban seem to have interpreted this agreement in exactly the same way as the West and the Pakistani liberal media – namely, as a sign that the Pakistani state and army were on the run and could be driven from one district after another. The resulting hubris led to their move into neighbouring Buner, which triggered their nemesis – the massive counter-offensive of the army against them.
By mid-summer of 2009, the military had driven the TNSM/Taleban from the Swat valley, captured hundreds of their activists, and – according to military figures – killed some 1,200 of them. However, the cost to the civilian population had been high. Though the military seems to have done its best to keep civilian deaths to a minimum, and damage in the city of Mingora itself was slight, villages where the TNSM/Taleban made a stand were heavily bombarded. Estimates of civilian casualties range from several dozen to several hundred, and more than 1.5 million people – amajority of the district’s population – fled from the fighting. By the end of the year almost all had returned – only to be displaced again the following August by the floods which swept down the Swat valley from the deforested mountains, destroying much of the region’s remaining infrastructure.
VISIT TO SWAT
I visited Swat again (more than twenty years after I had gone there for a peaceful holiday) in August 2009, over two months after the army counter-offensive had begun. The army had cleared the Taleban from the Swat valley itself, and according to military figures by mid-August had killed or captured some 2,000 militants, while losing almost 200 of their own men; but another 3,000 – 4,000, led by their chief commanders, had taken refuge in the surrounding hills, and began to launch suicide bombings and occasional assassinations. However, in the four days that I spent in Swat and Buner I did not hear a single shot or explosion – a sign of the extent to which the army had regained control of the valley. Over the following months, the army managed to kill or capture many of the remaining Swati commanders.
The road leading up to Swat from Mardan and the plains is itself a reminder of the region’s turbulent past. To reach the Swat valley, you have to cross the dramatic Ambela pass, where in 1863 local tribesmen under the banners of Islam fought a long battle against a British invading army. The British eventually dislodged