Mustafa Qadri

The Battle Has Only Just Begun

Thanks to massive army operations in the Swat valley, Pakistan’s Taliban movement is in retreat for the first time, writes Mustafa Qadri

Ever since Nek Mohammad began the first insurgency from Waziristan in 2003, the loose confederation of warlords known as the Pakistan Taliban Movement have either advanced or obtained de facto government recognition in large parts of Pakistan’s Pakhtun tribal areas. Before the current Pakistan Army operations in the Swat valley, one analyst estimated that the Taliban had a presence in over 10 per cent of the country.

[Read more →]

Don’t write the Taliban off just yet

Although the Taliban is on the back foot in Pakistan, the war is far from over and thousands of civilians have been left homeless

o Mustafa Qadri
o guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 June 2009 09.30 BST

The Taliban have suffered their heaviest defeat in Pakistan since first erupting into open insurgency in 2003. Before May, the loose network of warlords that have invoked the Taliban franchise here have expanded into large swaths of Pakistan’s Pakhtun tribal areas. Prior to current events, some estimates placed the Taliban in 11% of Pakistan, almost all of that being in the North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas that are presently the centre of military operations by Pakistan and the US.

[Read more →]