MALAKAND, PAKISTAN – In Pakistan they have have a great sense of the continuity of history.

These days, local government officials are called district coordination officers or DCOs rather than political agents, but when I visited Malakand yesterday I noted that the sign on the gate still read “Political Agent’s Residence” as it must have done since 1895 when the British took control of the area.
 
Above the DCO’s desk was a wooden board listing the names of all the political agents of Dir, Swat, Chitral, Bajaur and Malakand Agency. read more

Permalink||(2) Comments

My Pakistani journalist friend was clear. “This is the first serious effort by the Pakistani army since 9/11 to eliminate the Taliban.” In other words, the military assault to oust the militants from Swat shows that Pakistan’s strategic thinking has changed.

An intelligence contact reinforced the point. “It may have been America’s war in the past, but it’s no longer so,” he said. “It’s now our war and our security at stake.”

After General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani took over as army chief last year, he read more

Permalink||(5) Comments

MARDAN, PAKISTAN – The Taliban said they would take revenge for the attacks on them in the Swat valley, and they might do it anywhere in Pakistan.

It seems they have been as good as their word. This morning, we were in Mardan visiting refugees from the fighting in Swat when we heard about the blast in Lahore.

The refugees are the most obvious victims of this war, but the impact is being felt all over the country. read more

Permalink||(1) Comment

In quieter times, Taj Mahmad pulls a cart loaded with vegetables for a living. But today’s Washington Post quotes him as saying that he fled government shelling so quickly that he and his wife were forced to leave their son and three-year-old daughter behind. “My wife cried and said the rest of us would be killed if we stayed, so we kept going,” Mr Mahmad says. “I have no idea what happened to them”.

Another refugee, Bakhte Rwan, tells the Associated Press that he found his wife and two sons dead after he’d returned home from prayers at his local mosque. read more

Permalink||(9) Comments

Gordon Brown has announced a mini-surge of British troops in Afghanistan to help police the August presidential election there. He’s also promised a big increase in aid to Pakistan, with half of the money going to the Afghan frontier region, which Mr Brown has branded “the crucible of global terrorism”.

His 15-page strategy document (UK Policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan: the Way Forward) highlights the “critical strategic importance to the UK” of what the Americans now just call “the Af-Pak theatre”. read more

Permalink||(2) Comments

Mobile phone footage of a teenage girl being flogged publicly in Pakistan’s Swat Valley is now circulating widely (Google News brings up 89 results at the time of writing – probably far more by the time you read this).

Some viewers may find images in the video below distressing.

Part of this footage was used last month in a Channel 4 News report from the Taliban-controlled area. The report starts with scenes we filmed of a man read more

Permalink||(59) Comments

Today’s attack on a police training school in Lahore could be part of a worrying trend. This was not suicide bombing, but a commando-style raid, as per the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team which left seven dead in the same city earlier this month, and the attacks on the hotels in Mumbai, India last year. 

If these incidents are tactically connected, the finger of suspicion could point to homegrown Lashkar-e-Taiba militants. A senior army officer said the attackers were “Afghans”, but a police recruit read more

Permalink||(2) Comments

They worry this is the tip of the iceberg. Swat used to be called the Switzerland of Pakistan. A tidy, idyllic valley where the elite used to ski, the surroundings themselves so beautiful as to make you feel rested.

But today, that’s all changed. About two years of intense clashes between the army and militants there have led to a peace deal being signed in February. read more

Permalink||(8) Comments

I’ve just had a very insightful chat with Ahmed Rashid, doyen of the Lahore journalism set, the best-selling Taliban-Qaida watcher and described by Christopher Hitchens as “Pakistan’s best and bravest reporter”. His latest book, Descent into Chaos, documents Pakistan’s apocalyptic downward spiral.

So what did he make of what went on in the upmarket Gulberg district at 9 o’clock this morning? “Pakistan,” he said to me, ominously, “is running away with its crises. It doesn’t bode well.” read more

Permalink||(4) Comments