Death Valley

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A destroyed military truck in the town of Mingora reflects how violent Swat has become

John Moore / Getty Images

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Fazlullah, a 34-year-old cleric who once earned a living ferrying passengers and goods across the Swat River, got his start studying under Maulana Sufi Mohammed, a religious teacher who founded the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi (Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law) in the 1990s. In 2002 the organization was banned, and Mohammed was thrown in jail for mobilizing thousands of his followers to fight American forces in Afghanistan. Fazlullah, who by then was Mohammed's son-in-law, also went to Afghanistan to fight. Radicalized by the experience, and by his short stint in an Afghan jail, he returned to continue the campaign for Shari'a using the platform of his popular radio show. "He is a very good speaker," says Zaibi Raziq. "He gets the attention of a lot of people." In a region plagued by corruption and government inefficiency, Fazlullah's demand for rule of law — even Islamic law — struck a chord. "Many of his listeners were poor and illiterate," says Rahmat Ali Khan, a businessman from Matta who fled after his cousin, a police officer, was beheaded by Fazlullah's militants on Oct. 27. "They suffer under rich landlords who give them no rights. They think that if they follow [Fazlullah] they will be able to occupy their own lands, under Shari'a."

Eventually, Fazlullah's didactic sermons started to alienate many of Swat's residents, but by then it was too late — his militia had already established a foothold. Khan, the businessman from Matta, was sent threatening letters after he denounced Fazlullah's men for killing his cousin. "They have spies everywhere," he says. For too long, the central government ignored the problems festering in Swat, concerned that a crackdown on demands for Shari'a would alienate the country's Islam-based political parties. By the time the military tried to intervene, a homegrown insurgency was in full swing. Fazlullah equated resistance to the government with an anti-American jihad that had already gained some support among Swat's Pashtuns, who belong to same ethnic group as Afghanistan's Taliban. The high incidence of civilian casualties from early bombing raids targeting extremist strongholds further alienated the populace. "The people want the militancy to stop," says Adnan Aurangzeb, a former MP and the grandson of Swat's last princely ruler. "The militants have stopped tourism and disrupted their lives, but the government doesn't have the people's sympathy either."

Earlier attempts to secure Swat resulted in failure. General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, director general of military operations, says bands of militants as small as eight or nine have been able to take over entire villages. Local security forces often flee when faced with an insurgent onslaught. "If they stand up to fight, they know the gangsters will call in their 50 friends," says Pasha. Pakistan's military — which came of age fighting conventional wars with archrival India — never developed the expertise to tackle domestic insurgencies. The frontier corps, says the Western military official, is undertrained and outgunned. He puts himself in the soldier's boots: "I'm making $20 a month, I've got five bullets in my gun, and a couple of guys with AK-47s come up. I mean the question is, Do I want to die? Oh, and by the way, they know all my family."

The military says it's fighting back. This past week the army command sent in 15,000 regular army troops, helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles to battle Fazlullah's ragtag band of some 500 militants. The goal is to push them back into their mountain redoubts where the winter snows might keep them out of the way long enough to secure low-lying villages. When the fighting is over, says Fazli Raziq, he will return. But his wife Zaibi feels the violence will not end: "I know in my heart that there will never be peace." For her, and for many other Swat villagers, their valley is forever lost.