Monday, October 15, 2007

Tribal revolt pushes Pakistan to brink

by Saeed Shah from The Scotsman

In the North West Frontier Province last week, bombs have been placed in record shops and barbers, despised by Islamic extremists who regard music and clean-shaven men as Westernised heresy. They espouse the obscurantist creed of Wahhabi Islam preached by Osama bin Laden ... In the valley of Swat, in the North West Frontier Province, a religious fanatic, Maulana Fazullah, has taken over the area. The police are too afraid to patrol and the local administration has gone into hiding. Pakistani army battalions have been sent to the area but as yet they are still in camp, awaiting instructions to deploy. Fazullah issues decrees over his own FM radio station, and his men have even taken over traffic control duties. Analysts point out that the same Pushtun tribesmen are settled in Karachi, the massive port city in the south of the country.

1 comment:

Abu Daoud said...

Thank you, have posted a link over on Islamdom.blogspot.com.

The situation in Pakistan is bad and getting worse. The population is very large and growing quickly, education is pretty low, many parts of the country are totally removed from the authority of the central government, which itself is not very stable.