Extremists gain control in northern Pakistan

updated 5:42 p.m. ET Nov. 1, 2007

SWAT, Pakistan - Muslim extremists are expanding their control of northern Pakistan, challenging the U.S.-backed government of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and adding to the lands where terrorists allied with Osama bin Laden find refuge.

Once restricted to pockets in the mountains along the Afghanistan border, radical mullahs and their followers now wield power in vast areas of northwest Pakistan. They have moved in the past few months beyond the tribal regions and into northern Pakistan cities and the Swat Valley.

The increased influence of the Islamic radicals was highlighted this week by intense fighting between local gunmen and government troops. The government said about 180 people have been killed, mostly militants, in violence including bombings, abductions and shootouts.

“I can tell you there is money coming from al-Qaida and if al-Qaida did not lead these things we couldn’t fight,” said Abdul Samad, a stocky militant from Afghanistan’s eastern Nangarhar province who serves as a liaison between Taliban groups on both sides of the border. Even during the fighting, radicals have made themselves available to speak with visiting journalists.

President's authority questioned
The growing instability in northwest Pakistan has shaken Musharraf’s authority at a time when he’s also being upstaged by the return of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto — a jubilant homecoming shattered by a terrorist bombing that killed more than 140 people.

Taliban and al-Qaida were pushed back after the U.S. and its Afghan allies toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in late 2001. Today, residents say Arabs, Uzbeks and Tajiks have rejoined the ranks of the local radicals, mostly Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as the Taliban across the border in Afghanistan.

“The Pakistanis, and by extension the United States, have almost no control of events” in the northern, ethnically Pashtun regions, said Milt Bearden, a former CIA station chief in Pakistan.

“I don’t think anyone in Washington really gets it,” he said. “Losing Swat is shocking.”

Pro-Taliban cleric Maulana Fazlullah has set up a virtual mini-state in Swat, a province of 4,000 square miles. He uses an FM radio station to help spread fundamentalist Islam in an area once known to tourists as the “Switzerland of Asia” for its stunning, snow-covered mountains.

Militias following Fazlullah’s teachings, identified by their shoulder-length hair and camouflage vests over traditional shalwar kameez clothing, have bombed girls schools and blown up video and CD shops. They drilled holes into the face of a 20-foot- tall stone Buddha, obliterating the features of the 1,300-year-old sculpture.

Sher Mohammed, a lawyer in Swat and a human rights activist, said the enforcers — including Afghans and Arabs — “are roaming freely, checking barber shops in the small villages.”

“They come out at midnight. They are not local people,” he said.

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