War in paradise is Pakistan's line in the sand

At the dusty Jalala refugee camp in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, men queue for hours for rations of wheat and cooking oil in 40-degree heat. There is little respite inside the tents that house about 15,000. It's a far cry from the Swat Valley, the temperate Himalayan district 80 kilometres to the north, where most of the refugees fled fighting between Taliban insurgents and government troops.

Once known as the Switzerland of the East, a summer retreat for elite Pakistanis, honeymooners and hippies, the valley was an ancient cradle of Buddhism before the Mogul invader Babur introduced Islam. In the 1920s the British recognised Swat as a princely state; it did not join Pakistan until 1969. "It was a pocket of development, peace and beauty," says Samina Yasmeen, the Pakistani-born director of the centre for Muslim states and societies at the University of Western Australia.

That was then. For more than three years, Swat has been plagued by extremist insurgents loosely affiliated with the Deobandi Tehrik-i-Taliban - hardliners thriving in Pakistan's lawless tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, who have sought to impose a strict brand of sharia, Islamic law.

The valley's popular ski field at Malam Jabba was closed in 2007, a victim of the chaos, and burnt down by militants last year.

A half-hearted counterinsurgency operation in Swat in 2007 proved ineffective. Another offensive last year was cut short when the Awami National Party won office in the province. It promised to end fighting in Swat and negotiated a peace pact with the region's Taliban leader, Sufi Muhammad, agreeing to impose sharia, with religious courts deciding all cases. It also undertook to dismantle checkpoints, consult Taliban leaders about military movements in the region and release captured militants, including those responsible for public executions. The militants pledged to end their armed campaign.

The US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, said it was "abdicating" to extremists but the Pakistan president, Asif Ali Zardari, last month signed an agreement doomed to fail. The Taliban refused to give up their weapons and promptly moved into neighbouring Buner district.

The Taliban advance into Buner - only 100 kilometres from the capital, Islamabad, and near the strategically important Tarbela Dam - raised fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan and its 165 million people were on the brink.

Under intense US pressure, the military started to flush the militants out of Buner and last week launched an anti-Taliban offensive in Swat. Samina Yaseem says the alternative was to watch Pakistan turned into a version of Afghanistan "and I don't think people were willing to accept that".

The army claims to have killed more than 800 militants and to have regained control of large portions of Swat. Pakistan's political and army leaders have vowed to succeed this time but the stakes are high indeed.

Swat is crucial in Pakistan's struggle with militant extremism and the Government cannot afford to fail. Samina Ahmed, the International Crisis Group's South Asia project director, says Pakistan's ability to protect its people is being tested. "What's at stake here is the trust of people in the capacity of the state to counter militancy," she said.

Adding to the complexity and chaos is the biggest internal displacement of Pakistanis since Partition in 1947. The UN says more than 830,000 people have been registered as displaced and the number grows. They join 500,000 people displaced by conflict in the nearby Bajor district.

Ali Dayan Hasan, a Pakistani researcher for Human Rights Watch, says the displacement from the Swat region could fuel support for the Taliban. "If almost a million people have been uprooted surely that has to result in some kind of substantive change in this situation," he says. Hasan compares the mass movement to the aftermath of the US-led 2001 invasion of Afghanistan. Many Afghans were happy to see the Taliban driven from power but the poor response to those displaced by war assisted a political comeback by the extremists.

In the sprawling refugee camps south of the Swat Valley, it is easy to see how the sentiments of the displaced could harden.

Many told the Herald they blamed the military's heavy-handed assault, rather than the Taliban, for their problems. "There are so many kinds of Taliban," said Salim Muhammad, a refugee from Buner. "Some are bombing schools and demolishing government buildings - I don't like those ones. But I like the Taliban whose actions are in keeping with the teaching of the Koran."

But in Swabi, on the border of Buner and hosting tens of thousands of refugees, many residents firmly oppose the Taliban. Muhammad Ikram says the Taliban do not practise true Islam. "Islam is a religion of peace," he says. "There is no support for them here."

And the Taliban's march on Islamabad? "This is just media propaganda," the 40-year-old teacher scoffs. "They will not succeed here and they will have nowhere to hide because this town is on the plains, not in the mountains."

After 14 months in office, the Pakistan Government confronts the challenge in Swat at an ebb. One opinion poll this week rated Zardari's approval at 19 per cent. But the collapse of the Swat peace deal, which had widespread support, seems to have shifted sentiment. "People are not buying the rhetoric that this is America's war any more," says Samina Ahmed.

Brazen terrorist attacks - including March's attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore - may have contributed. Retired general Talat Masood, now a political and defence analyst, says the army's decision to allow the peace deal with the Taliban in Swat enhanced its public support. "I think that is why they sanctioned the peace deal," he said. "When it failed there was support for them to take more strident action."

The current Swat Valley operation, Masood says, is much better planned than previous campaigns. "It is producing results."

The main opposition party, Pakistan Muslim League, has resisted the temptation to politicise the assault. Its secretary-general, Iqbal Zafar Jhangra, told the Herald most Pakistanis believed there was no alternative after the peace deal collapsed.

If results aren't quick and profound, support may ebb. The human rights watcher Alia Dayan Hasan says: "There is a compact against the Taliban and there is support for this battle against them, but it is tenuous. Public opinion will turn quickly should there be a high number of civilian casualties or displaced people are badly treated. If this operation does not lead to an end to this insurgency in Swat, then the state has a problem."
BrisbaneTimes