What is happening in Pakistan’s Frontier province and in the surrounding semi-autonomous tribal areas (FATA) comes as little surprise, given the military’s evolved, soft-pedalled approach to containing extremism there. The farce of signing and rescinding of so-called peace deals over the last two years has emboldened the militants to regroup, gather more force and vie for more territory to be brought under their control — just as the Americans had warned.

Militant extremists are now virtually knocking on Peshawar’s door; it is feared that if the provincial capital falls, there will be nothing left to redeem. The Taliban movement will have resurrected itself on this side of the border, enslaving women and children and launching a full-fledged jihad against whoever opposes them. Afghan President Hamid Karzai saw it coming a long time ago; he may be an American stooge but his intentions cannot be doubted when he says he wants to put a halt to the killing of his people by Taliban militants who operate out of Pakistan.

The militants, while playing ball with the military over the last two years, have kidnapped foreigners and held influential locals and Pakistani diplomats to ransom; they have carried out suicide bombings inside Pakistan and are accused of masterminding Benazir Bhutto’s assassination; they have held paramilitary personnel hostage, blown up strategic installations, run propaganda radio stations, shut down and blown up girls’ schools, colleges and music shops, enforced purdah, banned the shaving of beards and dispensed tribal justice, even meting out capital punishment to those who did not obey their orders. They have demanded the withdrawal of paramilitary forces from the areas “under their control” and threatened to enforce Islamic law across the land. So far they have been undisturbed up in the rocky mountains, confiscating and raiding supplies meant for the Afghan transit trade, and smuggling the loot across the border to fund their war on the “war on terror” and the writ of the Pakistani state.

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