Malakand operation: the threat of militancy is not over, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Malakand operation: the threat of militancy is not over

Frontier providence

By Maleeha Lodhi

September 21, 2009

In much of Swat and Malakand division the State’s writ has been restored within four months of the launch of the military operation. Over 30,000 troops of three divisions were deployed, all of whom will remain there during the stabilisation phase.

However, as a recent suicide attack in Mingora demonstrated, the militants’ capacity to strike is yet to be neutralised even if it has been significantly degraded. A guerrilla style hit-and-run, low intensity conflict will most likely continue. Most of the top leaders of the Swat TTP are still at large. Sporadic fighting by scattered bands keeps erupting. Hardcore fighters who melted into the heavily-forested terrain have occasionally engaged the army, albeit in a defensive mode. This resistance is said to be dwindling, especially as the local community is becoming more assertive in cooperating with the authorities. Official and public confidence has also been enhanced by a series of militant surrenders, some to the law enforcement authorities (LEAs) and others to officially-sponsored local lashkars. But setting too high a store on the people’s ability to resist and inform must be tempered by their lingering fear of a Taliban comeback, until, at least, the top leadership is neutralised.

http://newageislam.com/malakand-operation--the-threat-of-militancy-is-not-over/war-on-terror/d/1812

Pakistan in the business of waging “deniable” jihad with the help of “non-state actors”?, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Pakistan in the business of waging “deniable” jihad with the help of “non-state actors”?

And now the ‘reverse’ jihad

An editorial in The Daily Times, Lahore

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

In the neighbouring Bajaur Agency, the local Taliban known to be supported from outside Pakistan cut off the ears of four private guards. The Pakistan army is deployed in Bajaur, the most dangerous stronghold of the militants who pretend to wage jihad against the state of Pakistan. There too, Pakistan has suffered incursions of “foreigners” from the neighbouring Afghan province of Kunar. Next to Bajaur, in South Waziristan Agency, the Taliban carried out the abduction of a government official obviously with the intent of demanding ransom or release of their cohorts from state captivity.

Our misfortune is that that all sides fighting on Pakistani soil claim the obligation of jihad as their motive for violence. Those who attack and those who defend also claim the status of martyr for their dead. In Swat, the “piety” of the militants is being demonstrated through the courts set up by them, doling out punitive verdicts without much examination of evidence. It is said that there are three types of Taliban operating in Pakistan: the Afghan plus non-Afghan “foreigners” attached to Al Qaeda; the Pakistani Taliban who are demanding a change in Pakistan’s foreign policy and enforcement of their tough sharia; and criminals who enrich themselves through jihad.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan-in-the-business-of-waging-%E2%80%9Cdeniable%E2%80%9D-jihad-with-the-help-of-%E2%80%9Cnon-state-actors%E2%80%9D?/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/1115