Taliban forces advancing in Pakistan

According to an alarming report in the Times of India, Pakistan is fast losing territory to the pro-Taliban rebel group, the Movement for Enforcement of Islamic Laws—and not just in the tribal mountainous region, but in settled areas of Pakistan just a few hours drive from Islamabad. Is this a time to be lecturing the Pakistanis about democracy?

A reader says this article is also very informative.

Ken Hechtman, the Canadian who went to Afghanistan after 9/11 as a freelance journalist and was arrested by the Taliban as a spy, writes:

Here’s another good piece with some background on the TNSM (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law):

Here’s the article I did about them six years ago.

Maulvi Fazlullah, the current TNSM leader, is the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammed, the guy I went chasing for an interview in 2001.

You ask “Is this a time to be lecturing the Pakistanis about democracy?”

Not only is this a bad time, but Frontier Province is a bad place to do it. In the last election, Frontier Province voted in an MMA (Islamic Action Council) majority government. The MMA is a six party coalition, with the JUI (the electoral arm of the Pakistani Taliban) as one of the two senior partners. That means the provincial paramilitary police and the Frontier Scouts aren’t going to move against TNSM. The democratically-elected provincial authorities won’t order it. Musharraf is on his own here. If he wants to put the revolt down, he has to use the national army and the army doesn’t especially want to do it. They took the worst of it in their last two confrontations with TNSM (1994 and 2001) and they’re not looking for a third.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at November 08, 2007 07:29 AM | Send