After the war: Taliban are gone but their actions are still etched in the memories of Swatis

“One thing I cannot understand is where did the Taliban come from and where did they disappear to so quickly?”

MINGORA:

It has been more than two years since the Taliban roamed the valley of Swat with impunity and threatened to kill him, but Mohammad Karim is still scared when he recalls how they paralysed life.

“The bad days are over... they (the Taliban) are in the past now and I don’t think they will ever come back,” he told AFP as he prepared to close his music and video shop and rejoin his family for the evening.

It was his merchandise of popular songs and films that saw the Taliban effectively shut down his shop two and a half years ago, after the picturesque mountain valley first started to slip out of government control in July 2007.

Radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah led hundreds of Taliban into sowing terror in an area once loved by holidaymakers for its balmy summers and snowy winters. His supporters beheaded opponents, burnt schools and fought to implant their own brand of Islamic law.

But in April 2009, the government launched a major offensive to reclaim Swat, along with the neighbouring districts of Buner and Lower Dir. Heavy fighting displaced an estimated two million people; the military declared the region back under control in 2009 and tentative efforts began to revive the economy.

Two years later, the army is still a heavy presence in Mingora, the main town of Swat, and commanders confirm they are preparing to create a military-run cantonment area in a bid to protect long-term stability.

“[The Taliban] ruined my business,” Karim said. He grew so frightened of their threats for running an “un-Islamic” shop, that after watching helplessly as his sales fell 70 per cent, he closed down for several months.

“Let me tell you very frankly, I got scared after they warned me of serious consequences.”

Standing behind big wooden shelves displaying CDs and DVDs of popular songs and movies, Karim said it had been difficult to survive.

“We’re in safe hands now, but one thing I cannot understand is where did the Taliban came from and where did they disappear to so quickly?”

Nowadays shops and restaurants are open in Mingora until late, with little outward sign of fear. It may look like any normal city, with people going about their routine business and markets crowded, but heavily armed police and soldiers are still deployed in large numbers, searching vehicles and even pedestrians.

“This is one big problem we’re facing. An over presence of military and civilian police on in the area is causing problems for people,” said Zahid Iqbal, a local grocer.

He wants things to be more relaxed since Mingora and other areas of Swat are now peaceful. “Gone are the days when we received threats and collect dead bodies in the city,” he said.

But Major General Javed Iqbal, commander of Swat, said it would take time before the situation fully returns to normal -- a mantra the army has repeated for two years.

“As soon as the government and the general headquarters (of the army) determine that the job is done, the army will leave Swat and hand over administrative control to civilians,” Iqbal said.

He said at a seminar on de-radicalisation that the area was experiencing a “victory of peace, and military solution was a temporary phase of a permanent solution.”

Sadly the rumble of violence is never far away. Sporadic outbreaks of violence in Swat have led to fears that the Taliban who held it are regrouping elsewhere in the northwest.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 7^th, 2011.