What is the current situation of swat valley? Is it still under the pressure of the Taliban’s?
Answers
Explanation:
An idyllic valley rich in natural resources and heritage located in northwestern Pakistan, the Swat is bit by bit recovering from the trauma of conflict between pro Al-Qaeda Taliban militants and Pakistan security forces that in May 2009 displaced 2.5 million from the region and left hundreds killed and maimed.
Unlike the lawless tribal region along the Pak-Afghan border, Swat was a princely state until it was merged into Pakistan in 1969. Its benevolent rulers developed a network of educational institutions, clinics, libraries and recreation centers for the locals.
But in the 1990s Maulana Sufi Muhammad, and then in 2007, his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, leader of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan’s (TTP) Swat chapter, played havoc with people’s lives and properties in the name of Shariah.
Taliban militants destroyed more than 400 schools in the valley to discourage "westernization" of the region and to guarantee the availability of fresh recruits for the promotion of their extremist agenda.
On 24 October, more than 3,000 Pakistani infantry troops were sent to Swat to confront Taliban forces that were massing in the district in a bid to impose their version of Sharia law in the valley that included preventing women's education, death penalty for barbers, music shop owners, and thieves, along with an anti ...