Swat, till recently popular with tourists looking for an alpine break, has of late seen the most vicious implementation of the Taliban’s fiats. Girls have been forbidden from attending school, school buildings have been blown up, dozens of people have been beheaded, and thousands of Swat’s residents have already fled. The irony is acute: one of the big surprises of the 2008 election was the rout of the religious parties in the NWFP, including Swat. Now, there is the prospect of the Taliban’s consolidation. Currently, the local Taliban are committed to a 10-day ceasefire; and, in response, the military has been shifted to a “reactive mode”. Attention is now focused on the efforts of a pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Sufi Mohammed, to sell the government’s offer to the fighters, the most prominent leader being his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah.

Pakistan has earlier tried such ceasefires with militants, to see them backfire. The moral hazard of conceding to the Taliban’s demands apart, even if a ceasefire were to be strengthened, great security dangers would remain. A ceasefire would be simply an opportunity for the militants to regroup.