Sharia law in Swat

Tue, 02/17/2009 - 2:38pm

I know it looks like a setback but I suspect this might be a smart move. Give the people of Swat sharia law, and see how they like it. Meanwhile, bolster your security forces in the area so they can pick up the ball when the Taliban has sufficiently alienated the populace. Risky? Sure. But better than losing Swat altogether.

Thomas E. Ricks | Permalink | | Comments? Login or register
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I agree

by BCM on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 4:01pm

At it's heart, it's a (risky) attempt to break-up the wider Taliban movement which is comprised of a lot of people with local grievances. In Swat, the local population were fed up with the judicial system and by many accounts that frustration led them into the hands of the Taliban. Those factions must be taken out of the militant fold for there to be a successful COIN campaign in the tribal area and beyond. Read more.

Gevernance by absence

by Krish on Tue, 02/17/2009 - 10:05pm

So much talk after pakistan's new press release. Gives them a new lease of life to continue "the great game".

Pakistan could care less about the Talib. They've been nurtured since Zia time.

I Repeat to thick heads: Pakistan army simply DOES NOT CARE about Sharia Law in Swat valley, FATA, NWFP.

Their approach: "Oh...YOU talib guys wanna govern here..be our guests. Go Get your money from the house of Saud. Saves us punjabis from administering that area. Now we can focus on ripping India apart full time (THAT's ALL WE CARE 4)...Thank you Holbrooke."

Meanwhile the Taliban with Holbrooke's blessing can now get a say in international affairs. Watch Holbrooke's grand agenda unfold. Everything will B A L K A N I Z E with dirty tricks. Put a Balkan guy in charge and u get Balkans 4 real.

journalists still at risk there

by fpcomments on Thu, 02/19/2009 - 11:21am

Deal or no deal, local journalists' lives are still at risk in Swat. TV and print reporter Musa Khankhel was kidnapped yesterday while covering the Swat peace rally and shot in the head--the fourth journalist to be murdered in Swat in the last year:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7899072.stm

That's quite a risky gamble

by Brett on Fri, 02/20/2009 - 11:45am

That's quite a risky gamble on their part,especially when you consider that the Taliban hasn't really held to earlier truces that effectively. They could easily use the breathing space to finish pushing Pakistani governmental authority out of the rest of the North West Frontier Province.

Plus, considering how incompetent the Pakistani military was in their military efforts to retake the NWFP and FATA, I'd question whether they can swoop in and re-take the area once the Taliban alienate the local population.

Facts

by Lure D. Lou on Sun, 02/22/2009 - 4:13pm

The Taliban are and always have been largely on the payroll of the Pakistani military and intelligence services. If the Taliban get kicked out of Afghanistan they will be put to work against India. Until we stop treating Pakistan like a real country and start picking and choosing what we want to happen there...then Pakistan will continue to disappoint us and thwart our regional ambitions...which are rather unclear at the moment. This whole mess should really be laid at the feet of the British who did a god-awful, and somewhat cowardly dash from the region when the major contradictions had not been resolved. They had a hundred years and more to sort things out but instead they just took the money, kept their boot on the neck of the civilians and then ran away with the loot just as the you-know-what was going to hit the fan...talk about despicable.
Anyway, so many chickens are coming home to roost one hardly knows where to start...the first thing would be to avoid the delusion that Pakistan will ever do anything in our interest or that Taliban will ever be satisfied lording it over a bunch of goat herders in the highlands.