.In Pakistan, ‘great rage, and great fear’
GOLRA, Pakistan - Hajji Karim and his extended family of 70 were camped in a dirt-floor stable 10 miles outside Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was as far as they could get from the Swat Valley, where thousands of people are fleeing from the ravages of the Taliban and the imminent prospect of war with government forces.
When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.
"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."
Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.
Refugees confused and trapped
As the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by occupying Taliban forces -- locking women inside their homes, setting donkeys on fire -- as they tried to force residents to accept a radical version of Islam.
The government has not helped, refugees said, with its erratic, seesawing efforts to appease and fight the militants. Some said they felt confused and trapped, unsure whether to trust the peace deal forged by the government and Taliban leaders last month, or to flee in anticipation of the fighting that has begun as the peace accord collapses.
Sher Mohammed, a property dealer from Mingora, the main town in Swat, was one of the first people to reach a new refugee camp in the Mardan district with his wife and children Tuesday night. On Wednesday, he kicked the dirt outside their tent despondently, saying that after enduring two years of fighting and Taliban abuses, he had had enough.
"I feel like I have lost my mind," he said. "I work hard to make a respectable life and educate my children. Now we are living in a camp, and my sons are talking of guns."
Mohammed said he did not understand why the country's powerful army had not been able to defeat the militants before they took over the valley. Even now, after a week of sporadic fighting, military officials have not announced an offensive against the militants who occupy much of Swat and Buner. The Taliban has repeatedly rejected government overtures to salvage the peace deal, in which the militants agreed to disarm if sharia courts were made the exclusive form of justice in Swat.
Army officials said 35 militants and three soldiers were killed Wednesday in Swat in sporadic fighting, including a shootout near several emerald mines that Taliban forces are using as hideouts. They said militants looted three banks and occupied police and civil administration buildings in Mingora. The military reported that an additional 50 militants had been killed in Buner.
MSNBC
When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.
"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."
Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.
Refugees confused and trapped
As the refugees begin streaming out of Swat and the neighboring Buner district in northwest Pakistan, they carry with them memories of the indignities and horrors inflicted by occupying Taliban forces -- locking women inside their homes, setting donkeys on fire -- as they tried to force residents to accept a radical version of Islam.
The government has not helped, refugees said, with its erratic, seesawing efforts to appease and fight the militants. Some said they felt confused and trapped, unsure whether to trust the peace deal forged by the government and Taliban leaders last month, or to flee in anticipation of the fighting that has begun as the peace accord collapses.
Sher Mohammed, a property dealer from Mingora, the main town in Swat, was one of the first people to reach a new refugee camp in the Mardan district with his wife and children Tuesday night. On Wednesday, he kicked the dirt outside their tent despondently, saying that after enduring two years of fighting and Taliban abuses, he had had enough.
"I feel like I have lost my mind," he said. "I work hard to make a respectable life and educate my children. Now we are living in a camp, and my sons are talking of guns."
Mohammed said he did not understand why the country's powerful army had not been able to defeat the militants before they took over the valley. Even now, after a week of sporadic fighting, military officials have not announced an offensive against the militants who occupy much of Swat and Buner. The Taliban has repeatedly rejected government overtures to salvage the peace deal, in which the militants agreed to disarm if sharia courts were made the exclusive form of justice in Swat.
Army officials said 35 militants and three soldiers were killed Wednesday in Swat in sporadic fighting, including a shootout near several emerald mines that Taliban forces are using as hideouts. They said militants looted three banks and occupied police and civil administration buildings in Mingora. The military reported that an additional 50 militants had been killed in Buner.
MSNBC
posted by madtom at 8:21 PM
5 Comments:
Once again, a Muslim finds it shocking that his fellow Muslims are following Islamic law. Cutting off heads of people is not Islamic? Do they even READ the damn book? They are ORDERED to 'smite the necks' of unbelievers and those who won't repent (pay protection money). Muhammad threw a torture and murdering spree or two himself when he wasn't screwing the slave girls. This reminds me of an exchange I had with the good Dr TT-- I gave him quotes straight out of Quaran when he told me Muhammad banned slavery. I gave him the scriptures describing him having sex with captured, young slave girls and permitting others to do the same. Instructed them on the proper way to beat those who refused. That's rape by any definition. And he refused to believe me or even discuss the facts. People go around declaring Islam the religion of peace and freedom when it is the antithesis of those things. All you have to do is read the texts and history of the time.
Meanwhile, here in the land of the free and home of the brave, what i just wrote will have me put in jail in the near future. Beheading can't be that far behind. It's enough to get me banned from the UK, right now!
But Will you know the taliban is about repression, not religion. I know that, you know that and now these people know it too.
The Taliban is about a repressive religion. Many, maybe most, of those who follow Islam are in a constant state of denial, but the Taliban is living Islam as it was lived by its founder. Muslims are brought up in a constant state of denial. Someone said that to understand Arab society and thinking you have to know that they are brought up to revere the Koran as the word of God, above question. Yet, when a black dog crosses their path, instead of doing the ritual taking a parallel path for the proscribe number of paces before crossing the path of the dog as the Messenger of God revealed is God's commandment, they deny the dog even exists. They have to do that sort of thing every day in order to live some semblance of a modern life. Truth and reason have no value in a society where you risk losing your life, your soul, if you actually recognize what is in front of you, even if it's in print right in front of your face.
There was this girl from Alexandria that worked at one of the corner cafés, I got to know here a little, and she told me about some trouble she was having involving her inheritance, she or her mother were pulling all the strings they could to prevent her fathers brother from walking away with all the loot the old man left behind. They had to lie cheat and steal to keep what was theirs to begin with.
And in the same breath she was telling me how sharia had to be observed to maintain civility and social order.
I tried to understand, I tried to point out the contradictions, you lying and cheating to circumvent the sharia, why do you say it's so invaluable? "to preserve social order" so why don't follow the rule and let your uncle have his house and money. "we need it to survive"
Where is the benefits of sharia?, "to preserve social order"
She sold beer, sex, drugs and gambling...at the corner café
She sold beer, sex, drugs and gambling...at the corner café'
Now THAT"S what I call a convenience store!
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