Bring peace to the troubled frontier
Grassroots attempts to foster peace in Pakistan provide hope for communities torn apart by war with the Taliban
· Mustafa Qadri
· guardian.co.uk, Saturday 25 July 2009 16.00 BST
There has been much soul-searching in Pakistan of late, and with good reason. Although the Army claims to have largely pushed the Taliban out of the Swat Valley, the most developed part of the country yet infiltrated by the insurgents, the war continues in all of its brutality and uncertainty.
Even in Swat it is unclear whether the Taliban are really vanquished. The government may have told the millions made homeless by this conflict that it is safe to return, but the army’s inability to eliminate key Swat Taliban leaders and the existence of huge pockets of remote mountainous terrain incapable of ever being properly secured make the possibility of a Taliban return a real threat…