Salaam writes: Recently, Juan Cole minimized nearly to the point of dismissal the threat of the Pakistani Taliban when he wrote, "What I see is a Washington that...seems not to realize that the Pakistani Taliban are a small, poorly armed fringe of Pushtuns, who are a minority."
The following article reports on the growth of the Taliban-affilliated militant extremist movement in Pakistan's Punjab state, southeast of the Taliban's currently area of influence, where the population is being radicalized over time by extremist madrasas.
MOHRI PUR, Pakistan - The elementary school in this poor village is easy to mistake for a barn. It has a dirt floor and no lights, and crows swoop through its glassless windows. Class size recently hit 140, spilling students into the courtyard.
But if the state has forgotten the children here, the mullahs have not. With public education in a shambles, Pakistan's poorest families have turned to madrasas, or Islamic schools, that feed and house the children while pushing a more militant brand of Islam than was traditional here.
The concentration of madrasas here in southern Punjab has become an urgent concern in the face of Pakistan's expanding insurgency. The schools offer almost no instruction beyond the memorizing of the Koran, creating a widening pool of young minds that are sympathetic to militancy.
In an analysis of the profiles of suicide bombers who have struck in Punjab, the Punjab police said more than two-thirds had attended madrasas.
"We are at the beginning of a great storm that is about to sweep the country," said Ibn Abduh Rehman, who directs the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent organization. "It's red alert for Pakistan."
education has never been a priority here, and even Pakistan's current plan to double education spending next year might collapse as have past efforts, which were thwarted by sluggish bureaucracies, unstable governments and a lack of commitment by Pakistan's governing elite to the poor.
"This is a state that never took education seriously," said Stephen P. Cohen, a Pakistan expert at the Brookings Institution. "I'm very pessimistic about whether the educational system can or will be reformed."
Pakistani families have long turned to madrasas, and the religious schools make up a relatively small minority. But even for the majority who attend public school, learning has an Islamic bent. The national curriculum was Islamized during the 1980s under Gen. Mohammad Zia ul-Haq, a military ruler who promoted Pakistan's Islamic identity as a way to bind its patchwork of tribes, ethnicities and languages.
Literacy in Pakistan has grown from barely 20 percent at independence 61 years ago, and the government recently improved the curriculum and reduced its emphasis on Islam.
Failures in education But even today, only about half of Pakistanis can read and write, far below the proportion in countries with similar per-capita income, like Vietnam. One in three school-age Pakistani children does not attend school, and of those who do, a third drop out by fifth grade, according to Unesco. Girls' enrollment is among the lowest in the world, lagging behind Ethiopia and Yemen.
"Education in Pakistan was left to the dogs," said Pervez Hoodbhoy, a physics professor at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad who is an outspoken critic of the government's failure to stand up to spreading Islamic militancy.
This impoverished expanse of rural southern Punjab, where the Taliban have begun making inroads with the help of local militant groups, has one of the highest concentrations of madrasas in the country.
Of the more than 12,000 madrasas registered in Pakistan, about half are in Punjab. Experts estimate the numbers are higher: when the state tried to count them in 2005, a fifth of the areas in this province refused to register.
Though madrasas make up only about 7 percent of primary schools in Pakistan, their influence is amplified by the inadequacy of public education and the innate religiosity of the countryside, where two-thirds of people live.
An artillery emplacement of the Pakistani military in Lower Dir district.
Salaam writes: The Taliban, who broke the peace deal when they invaded Buner, lie and lie some more when they blame the government for the resumption of fighting.
Pakistan's peace pact with the Taliban is close to collapse, a Taliban spokesman has warned, accusing the government and the army of being stooges for the US.
The warning came as Pakistani troops continued their offensive against Taliban fighters in Buner in the country's northwest on Monday, killing seven fighters.
The fighting has strained the government's deal with the Taliban that allows for the enforcement of sharia, or Islamic law, across Malakand division in exchange for peace.
"They [the army and government] have no respect for any pact," Muslim Khan, the Pakistani Taliban's spokesman in neighbouring Swat, said.
"They keep violating every agreement and if this goes on, definitely there will be no deal, no ceasefire.
"This is not our army, this is not our government. They're worse enemies of Muslims than the Americans. They're US stooges and now it's clear that either we'll be martyred or we'll march forward."
Buner violence The military said that among the seven fighters killed in Buner was a man they identified as "an important militant commander".
One soldier was also killed and three others wounded in the latest fighting, the military said. It also accused the fighters of using about 2,000 villagers as human shields.
For their part, Taliban fighters appeared to have resumed armed patrols in Mingora, the main town in Swat valley.
The Taliban attacked a power station in the town on Monday, where some 46 soldiers and police officers are believed to be inside fighting the attackers.
"Despite the curfew, residents saw armed Taliban on the street which is a clear violation of the peace deal," Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's Pakistan correspondent, reported.
He said that the fighting had effectively destroyed the pact and was endangering civilian lives.
"The deal is dead. The only thing missing is for the courage to admit the deal is dead," he said.
"The serious worry is the military keeps on going after a bunch of fighters who will disappear into the mountains, and it is the people who are reeling under the effects of what is going on."
Buner lies just 100km from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital, and is to the southeast of the Swat valley, where the government and Taliban agreed the peace pact in February.
In recent months several popular artists have been forced to stop performing as singers and comedians. Others have fled the country or moved to other cities.
From The Times Online: A rising musical star was allegedly shot dead by her own brothers in the conservative city of Peshawar in Pakistan last week after she had appeared on television.
The murder of Ayman Udas, who was in her early thirties and newly married, has shocked the city's artistic community because it symbolises a backlash against women and cultural freedom in an area that is increasingly dominated by Islamic fundamentalists.
As a singer and song writer in her native Pashto, the language of the tribal areas and the NorthWest Frontier province, Udas frequently performed on PTV, the state-run channel.
She won considerable acclaim for her songs but had become a musician in the face of bitter opposition from her family, who believed it was sinful for a woman to perform on television.
Ashamed of her growing popularity her two brothers are reported to have entered her flat last week while her husband was out and fired three bullets into her chest. Neither has been caught.
The final song performed by Udas on screen seems to have portended her death. It was entitled, "I died but still live among the living, because I live on in the dreams of my lover." Udas, a divorced mother of two, had remarried 10 days before she was murdered.
Fellow performers, many of whom have received death threats from hardline Islamist groups, were stunned by the killing.
In recent months several popular artists have been forced to stop performing as singers and comedians. Others have fled the country or moved to other cities.
Initially, it was believed that Udas was killed by an Islamic group. But Usman Khan, her husband, told police in a statement that she had been killed by her brothers because they could not come to terms with her musical career.
ISLAMABAD - Pakistan warned militants Tuesday to leave a district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital or face military action, an indication that the government may be willing to expand an offensive in the Afghan border region covered by a much-criticized peace deal.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik's stern comments came amid heightened U.S. pressure on the nuclear-armed Muslim nation to root out militants on its soil, though he and other Pakistani leaders have denied bowing to outside influence.
The peace deal with Taliban militants covers the Swat Valley. It imposes Islamic law in Swat, Buner, Dir and other districts that make up the Malakand division, a vast tract not far from Afghanistan. U.S. officials fear the deal creates a sanctuary for al-Qaida allies.
Supporters of the deal say it addresses long-standing local demands for a more efficient judicial system, a grievance exploited by the Taliban, and was the best hope for ending some two years of bloodshed in the Swat Valley.
Still, it appeared to have emboldened the Swat Taliban, who forayed south to Buner, a district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Islamabad. The militants began pulling out of Buner on Friday, but Malik said many had remained.
"Some 450 militants have been seen in Buner," he said. "I warn them to leave immediately. If they are spotted again and resist the government's effort to establish its authority and maintain order then we will take action."
On Sunday, the military began an operation in Lower Dir, saying it was prompted by militant attacks on security forces and the abductions of prominent people for ransom. Malik said Tuesday at least 70 militants had been killed.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, downplayed the military action in Lower Dir, saying it was merely a short-term response to insurgent ambushes of security forces.
Analysts have said the offensive in Lower Dir is probably just a signal to the militants to stay confined to Swat and would likely be a limited operation.
He also ordered all government judges to leave the volatile region by April 23. "If they did not, the government will be responsible for any consequences," Sufi said.
A senior Taliban leader tells thousands of his supporters that there would be no room for democracy if Taliban rules over Pakistan.
Sufi Mohammad, a pro-Taliban cleric, mediating talks between the Pakistani government and Taliban insurgents, said on Sunday that Pakistan's rulers were imposing the system of 'kafirs' or infidels on the people of the country.
Sufi told a gathering of his followers in Mingora, the main town in the troubled northwestern Swat valley that all judges, lawyers and pro-democracy Ulema (Muslim scholars of religion) were 'rebels', a Press TV correspondent reported.
He also ordered all government judges to leave the volatile region by April 23. "If they did not, the government will be responsible for any consequences," Sufi said.
He emphasized that Taliban's judicial system was superior and its decisions could not be appealed in Islamabad's Supreme Court.
The Taliban rally in the valley comes after President Asif Ali Zardari and lawmakers -- under pressure by the militants -- last Monday agreed to introduce a harsh Taliban judicial system in the troubled Malakand division, comprising of six north-western districts including Swat.
The Taliban is now moving from the northwestern region into the Punjab and Sindh provinces, sources say.
The group has long campaigned to impose Wahhabi style laws, which include beheading and storming female education centers. The insurgents are rapidly extending their influence toward the major cities of Pakistan.
"God willing, our sacrifices will not go in vain and the religion of Islam will be implemented not only in Pakistan but all over the world," Aziz told followers who crammed into the mosque and on the street outside.
Maulana Abdul Aziz, center in glasses, is escorted by police as he arrive to attend the funeral of his brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi, who was killed in the siege of Lal Masjid or Red Mosque, at his ancestral village Basti Abdullah, some 400 (kilometers (249 miles) west of Multan, Pakistan, Thursday, July 12, 2007. Aziz led funeral prayers for his slain brother, and forecast that the death of the mosque's militant defenders would push Pakistan toward an "Islamic revolution."
The former head cleric of Pakistan's Red Mosque, the scene of a standoff between the government and Islamic students in 2007, has called for Islamic law to be imposed in Pakistan and the wider world.
Maulana Abdul Aziz returned to the Red Mosque in Islamabad for prayers on Friday, a day after his almost two-year house arrest was lifted.
About 3,000 of his supporters attended, reports said.
"God willing, our sacrifices will not go in vain and the religion of Islam will be implemented not only in Pakistan but all over the world," Aziz told followers who crammed into the mosque and on the street outside.
"We are peaceful people but if our way is blocked then you have witnessed the scenes in Swat and in Fata," he said, referring to the ethnic Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas on the Afghan border.
Released on bail On Wednesday, the Supreme Court ordered Aziz's release from house arrest on 200,000 rupees ($2,500) bail.
His lawyer said that 27 cases had been filed against him and bail had been granted earlier in 25 of them while one case had been dropped.
The Red Mosque, in the heart of the Pakistani capital, made international headlines in July 2007 when more commandos stormed the complex after a week-long standoff with Aziz's followers.
More than 100 people were killed in the ensuing violence.
Mullah Nezaar, a Pakistani Taliban leader, released an audio message on the internet, claiming that his group is just days away from marching on the capital.
Sufi Muhammad says the government had been too slow to introduce the Sharia (Islamic law) in the region.
A religious leader who negotiated an agreement that ended fighting between the Taliban and security forces in Pakistan's Swat valley says he is pulling out of peace talks.
Sufi Muhammad said on Thursday that the reason for his withdrawal was that the government had been too slow to introduce the Sharia (Islamic law) in the region.
He said he would be leaving the area.
Muhammad's statement calls into question the durability of a controversial peace effort in the valley, where fighting has forced out thousands of residents.
Government blamed Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, has said he will sign an order introducing
the Sharia in the region only once peace has been fully restored.
Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said: "Sufi Mohammed, who was the key factor in brokering a peace deal in the Swat valley between the government, the provincial government, and the Taliban, has now threatened to pull out of talks.
"He has blamed the central government directly for dragging their feet on the accord.
"All this is happening at a time when the Swat Taliban has moved into an adjoining district and are saying that they cannot be stopped from going into other areas.
"That is going to be a very serious development and, if that peace accord does break down, it will have serious repercussions for the adjoining districts as well."
Also on Thursday, Mullah Nezaar, a Pakistani Taliban leader, released an audio message on the internet, claiming that his group is just days away from marching on the capital.
"Pakistan Taliban factions have united ... The day is not far when Islamabad will be in the hands of the mujahidin."
An annual Spring festival in Pakistan's Sindh province has been cut short, from 10 days to only three, following threats from a Taliban affiliate group seeking a "pure, Islamic state" that has recently increased its presence in the region. The threats are specifically directed towards 18 Pakistani female dancers, whose Sufi music and dance performance is a central feature of the festival.
Local police accompanied the clerics who made the demand. Credit to all involved that nobody was killed, but have no doubt that the threat is coercive religious oppression, hence I tag this "Muslim-on-Muslim violence."
The flogging occurred after a neighbour reportedly claimed the girl had a relationship with a married man.
The Holy Quran says: "O ye who believe! Avoid suspicion as much (as possible): for suspicion in some cases is a sin: And spy not on each other behind their backs. Would any of you like to eat the flesh of his dead brother? Nay, ye would abhor it...But fear Allah: For Allah is Oft-Returning, Most Merciful." (49: 12)
Salaam writes: I've previously posted on this here, where the original flogging video that was the cause of such outrage and controversy can be viewed.
Update:Eyewitness to whipping comes forward. Reports that this incident only happened two weeks ago, contrary to the claims of the Taliban spokesperson quoted below.
"This was an old incident which happened before the Islamic Sharia courts were constituted in the Swat Valley and even before the ceasefire was announced.
"It was not officially done by the Taliban but some Taliban did that in their private capacity," Taliban spokesperson Haji Muslim Khan told Adnkronos International (AKI).
Khan said the girl's flogging took place while the Taliban was fighting the Pakistani army. "We were not in a position to control each and every event and therefore some lapses happened," he said.
"Nevertheless, one thing was confirmed and that is that the girl was wayward and therefore she should be punished."
The flogging occurred after a neighbour reportedly claimed the girl had a relationship with a married man.
"Some rules were ignored during the implementation of flogging like, it should be done behind closed doors and not in public," Khan admitted.
Pakistan's chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry has ordered Pakistan's interior secretary and the NWFP government to prepare a report on the incident by by Monday.
What kind of justification is it that a gossipy neighbor made accusations? How many admonitions against gossip are there in the Quran and the Hadiths?
'A realist knows that you sometimes need to talk to bad guys to advance your interests. But [Baitullah] Mehsud has repeatedly violated past agreements with the Pakistani government and proven that he's not a reliable negotiating partner.'
BBC photo, reportedly of a Taliban base in South Waziristan.
ISLAMABAD - The son of a poor potato farmer who once worked as a fitness instructor has grown into one of the most powerful militant leaders along the Pakistan-Afghan border, his rise fueled by alliances with al-Qaida and fellow Pakistani militants.
A day after Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud threatened to attack the White House, a U.S. drone fired two missiles at the alleged hide-out of one of his commanders Wednesday in a remote area of northwest Pakistan near the Afghan border, killing 14 people, intelligence and local officials said.
Mehsud is now seen as posing one of the greatest threats to President Barack Obama's push to stem Pakistan's slide toward instability and turn around the war in Afghanistan, analysts and officials said.
For years, the U.S. had considered him a lesser threat than some of the other Pakistani Taliban, their Afghan counterparts and al-Qaida, because most of his attacks were focused inside Pakistan, not against U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials said the U.S. has changed its view in recent months as Mehsud's power has grown and concerns mounted that increasing violence in Pakistan could destabilize the nuclear-armed ally.
"Mehsud poses a very real threat to stability and security in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Eric Rosenbach, a terrorism expert at Harvard's Kennedy School.
Her new husband told the AP on Wednesday that he was enraptured by Mai's "extreme courage."
Mukhtar Mai, center, on International Women's Day 2006 leads a march of 5,000 protesting for women's rights in Pakistan.
MULTAN, Pakistan - A Pakistani gang-rape victim who shunned custom and rose to global fame by speaking out about her case has defied another local taboo - she just got married.
Mukhtar Mai is now the second wife of Nasir Abbas Gabol, a police officer who was assigned to protect her as her case gained notoriety. He said she was reluctant to accept his offer and that he threatened suicide when she turned him down.
Mai was gang raped at the order of a tribal council in the eastern province of Punjab in 2002 to punish her family for her brother's alleged affair with a woman from a higher-caste family. There were also allegations that the boy had been molested by members of the other family, and that the accusations of the affair were used to cover up the crime.
Rape victims in Pakistan face severe social stigma and diminished marriage prospects, prompting many to commit suicide. But Mai went public and challenged her alleged attackers in court, attracting international attention and becoming a women's rights activist.
She was named Glamour magazine's Woman of the Year, and now runs a school in her southern Punjab province village of Meerwala. The case against her attackers is still in the court system.
Mai told AP Television News after the nuptials that she'd never completely ruled out marriage.
"When you do marriage you have to have faith in your partner," she said.
Her new husband told the AP on Wednesday that he was enraptured by Mai's "extreme courage."
The brutality of these murders was further exacerbated by the fact that Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen were expecting their first child.
Press release from Ahmadiyya Muslim Community US: It is with great pain that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community confirms that two of its members were brutally murdered in Multan yesterday.
The deceased, Dr Shiraz Ahmad Bajwa and Dr Noreen Bajwa were husband and wife and were both trained as doctors. Both martyrs were under the age of forty. Yesterday at around 2.30pm local time, unknown assailants attacked Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen at their home in Wapda Colony, Multan Road. The assailants first taped together the hands, feet and mouths of both victims. They then tied rope around their necks and strangled them to death. Following death Dr Shiraz was hung from a nearby fan.
The brutality of these murders was further exacerbated by the fact that Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen were expecting their first child.
Dr Shiraz was an eye-specialist who had served at various hospitals including the Fazl-e-Umer Hospital in Rabwah. At the time of his death he was working at a hospital in Wapda. Similarly Dr Noreen was working at a local childrens hospital.
What occurred in Multan yesterday was an act of such cruelty that it can never be comprehended by decent and peace loving people. Dr Shiraz and Dr Noreen had been married for just three years and were expecting their first child together. They had both chosen career paths which allowed them to serve their fellow men, women and children.
Pakistan is a country that is currently facing absolute ruin. Amongst this chaos the hateful acts of religious extremists are ever increasing, to the extent that loving, caring and innocent people are being murdered because they belong to a community whose motto is "Love for All, Hatred for None." The International Community, Media and Human Rights organizations are all urged to take action to protect the lives and rights of Ahmadi Muslims both in Pakistan and in other countries where they face discrimination. In an era where freedom of religion and belief is accepted as a basic human right throughout the world it is of disbelief that Ahmadi Muslims are being murdered for no other reason than their choice of religion.
Murtaza Haider at Afpak blog writes: The Sunni Tehreek (Sunni Movement), a non-political religious organization that represents the moderate (Barelwi) Sunnis in Pakistan, has finally decided to join the political arena. This is a welcome change. One hopes that the Sunni Tehreek's political Wing, Pakistan Inqalabi Tehreek, will be able to offer an alternative to religious Pakistanis, majority of whom are peace loving moderates.
The Sunni Tehreek rejects violence, which has become the hallmark of the Taliban-style Islam in Pakistan. Referring to the violent struggle by the Taliban for enforcing Shariah in Swat, Sarwat Aijaz Qadri, who heads the Sunni Tehreek, said: "We condemn the implementation of Shariat on gunpoint." For standing up to the Taliban and other extremists in Pakistan, the Sunni Tehreek has paid dearly. In April 2006, the Tehreek's entire leadership was obliterated in a bomb attack, which killed more than 56 people, in Nishtar Park, Karachi. Earlier in May 2001, another batch of Tehreek's leadership was assassinated.
The vacuum created by the absence of a moderate Sunni leadership drove Pakistani Sunnis into the hands of hardliners and extremists. Since the beginning of the Afghan war in mid-seventies, the mainstream Sunnis in Pakistan have suffered a great deal. They were sidelined, marginalised, and religiously disenfranchised by the Wahabi/Deobandi version of Islam that was jointly funded by the Americo-Saudi alliance to radicalize a people to fight against the Russian army in Afghanistan.
It started with the mushroom growth of Deobandi madrassahs in Pakistan in mid-to-late seventies. The prayer leaders (imams) in most mosques were systematically replaced by hardliners who urged their followers to leave for Afghanistan and fight the Red Army. The result was a takeover of the religious enterprise in Pakistan by the Deobandi leaning clerics.
"Pakistani madrasas brainwash students and teach them religious extremism, armed Jihad and hatred against the government in Afghanistan and the West," said Gulab Mangal, Helmand's governor.
Pakistani madrassas in 2006.
LASHKARGAH, 17 February 2009 (IRIN) - The closure of schools and continuing attacks on students in the southern Helmand Province forced Abdul Wakil's parents to send him to a madrasa (Islamic school) in neighbouring Pakistan.
Almost two months later, Abdul Wakil [not his real name] quit the school outside Quetta, capital of Pakistan's Baluchistan Province, and returned home.
"In the madrasa we were taught to sacrifice ourselves for Jihad in Afghanistan and were told to do suicide attacks," the 14-year-old told IRIN in Lashkargah, centre of Afghanistan's insurgency-torn Helmand Province.
"I don't want to be a suicide attacker, because it's forbidden in Islam, so I secretly quit the madrasa and returned home," the teenager said.
Abdul's parents are happy to have their son safe but are extremely concerned about his security.
"If the Taliban find out about him, they will kill him," said his father, who requested anonymity. "We are also concerned about his education and his future," he said.
His concerns are not unique in the volatile south, where attacks by insurgent groups have closed more than 630 schools, depriving 300,000 students of an education, according to the Ministry of Education (MoE).
Poor literacy rates
More than two decades of war have severely damaged education in Afghanistan, resulting in very low literacy rates: 12.6 percent among females and 43.1 percent among males, an average of 28.1 percent nationwide, according to aid agencies.
The insurgents' anti-education activities - armed attacks, intimidation and negative propaganda - seek to shut down schools and deny students - girls and boys - a formal education that mixes modern scientific subjects with Islamic studies.
From January to October 2008, 256 school-related security incidents, with 30 deaths, were reported, against 213 incidents in the same period in 2007, according to the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF).
As a result, going to school has become increasingly dangerous for students and teachers.
However, the insurgents have tacitly encouraged parents to send their sons to religious schools in neighbouring Pakistan for Islamic studies.
"Pakistani madrasas brainwash students and teach them religious extremism, armed Jihad and hatred against the government in Afghanistan and the West," said Gulab Mangal, Helmand's governor.
Almost all Taliban leaders, including their reclusive leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, were trained in Pakistani madrasas.
Madrasas not only offer immunity from Taliban attacks but also provide free board and lodging to students and are thus more attractive to poor families than modern schools.
Tens of thousands of Afghan citizens are enrolled in Pakistani madrasas, MoE officials estimate.
