Aftermath of disaster and conflict: Army filling the void in Swat

[TaimiKhan]

While Leader's statement wasn't very pleasant, I think it isn't very mature of you either to draw your opinion about a whole political party based on one guy's opinion.

Well, my opinion is not based on just Leader's statement, rather on the behavior and the statements & personal interaction which the leader of TI gives, and that would be Imran Khan.

 

[superNova]

You regret your taxes being used for reconstruction, elimination of terrorists and maintaining security and vigilance against a return of the terrorists?

sir jee they need to make police strong, we dont need barracks in every corner of our damn country, we also dont need barracks in karachi, the user is right, our tax matters and they dont need to be wasted like this

some barracks indeed need to be on afghan border but only when drone attacks stop and we can safeguard our frontier from both terrorists and smuggling

people always talk about doing army operation in karachi, but people fail to realize army operation will damage karachi and its peace will worsen, police is here to stay in karachi and thus police should be corrected, this is the long term durable less costly solution

how active our army was, the osama killing gives us clear indication that army base doesnt guarantee stopping the terrorist infiltration, police knows people they handle the civil and go to each home and wander in every street, police is the only solution, we cant afford to do army operation daily in swat

 

[fatman17]

Pakistan army eyes permanent bases in Swat

By Emmanuel Duparcq (AFP)


MINGORA, Pakistan — New threats risk delaying a handover to civilian leaders in Pakistan's Swat valley, where the army remains two years after stamping out a Taliban insurgency and restoring peace.

After years of Islamist violence, a military offensive and devastating floods, Pakistani tourists this summer started coming back to the lush valleys, bubbling rivers and superb mountains of the famed northwestern district.

But if the scenery hasn't changed, visitors from Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi need to negotiate a more recent fixture: the omnipresent uniformed soldiers and beige military vehicles.

In the summer of 2009, the army sent 30,000 troops into battle against Taliban fighters controlled by Maulana Fazlullah, who since 2007 had terrorised people with a campaign of beheadings, violence and attacks on girls' schools.

By July 2009 the army declared the region back under control and said the rebels had all been killed, captured or had fled.

After years of Islamist violence, a military offensive and devastating floods, Pakistani tourists this summer started comingSince then, Swat has lived in peace. There has been no deadly attack since a suicide bombing in the main town of Mingora in July 2010.

But two years on, there are still more than 25,000 soldiers in Swat filling the void left by years of conflict.

Former administrative offices, luxury homes or hotels with panoramic views... from Mingora to the northern reaches of the valley, the army has requisitioned dozens of buildings to house its troops.

Some make fun of the prolonged stay in a beautiful landscape with a climate far less punishing than the heat-blasted plains of the south.

"They're taking advantage. The clear air, the countryside, the luxury homes are better than ordinary camps," smiles Iftikhar Ali, 24, a student in the suburbs of the town of Madyan.

Everyone knows, however, that the army came to save them twice in the last two years: in kicking out the Taliban and during floods last year, which cut off 80 percent of the population of Swat from the rest of the country.

"The army did a lot for us. They cleared roads, rebuilt bridges, gave us food rations, while the government was all promises and didn't give us a single penny," said Mohammed Iqbal, who sells clothes in Behrain, a tourist town partly devastated by the floods.

But the population of Swat, for a long time an autonomous princely state and without any military bases before 2009, is getting tired of the overt military presence, particularly the numerous checkpoints which hinder free movement.

Sardar Ali, 30, a worker in Mingora, acknowledged that checkpoint practices had eased in recent months, but said he was still fed up.

"Soldiers don't listen to people's complaints. Sometimes they are brutal and cruel, they beat people who rush to go through, even when it is for a medical emergency," he told AFP.

"The army should stay in Swat, because the Taliban can come back. But soldiers have to stay in cantonments, not on the streets," said Inayat Ur Rehman, a 40-year-old peasant, a view shared by a number of Swatis.

The army says 80 percent of its checkpoints have been dismantled or handed over to police in the last year. It also insists it will hand over control to the civilian administration.

The army has ruled Pakistan for more than half its existence, most recently from 1999 until 2008, when the current civilian government was elected.

General Javed Iqbal, commander of the area, talked about a civilian transfer within "several months" as part of a "gradual process" in which "several steps still have to be taken".

But it seems a return to normal could take much longer.

The army is planning to move into three or four cantonments, says Iqbal. The construction of the buildings alone, will take two years.

Then there is a spike in unrest in the neighbouring district of Dir, where the Taliban assaulted a police post in early June killing 10 policemen.

Dir borders the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan where a number of security officials believe Fazlullah and some of his fighters sought refuge.

"I am concerned," admits Iqbal. "It is going to impact the process, but will not derail it."

The head of the civilian administration in Swat, Kamran Rehman, says he is ready to take over immediately, but that it's up to the army.

"Maybe in the coming one year," he mused.

But one security official dismissed that out of hand. "My guess is it will take two or three more years," he said.

Copyright © 2011 AFP.

 

[superNova]

Feel sorry for you that your tax will be used to kill/capture your brother in arms, the taliban.

Hope Imran Khan& tehreek Insaf guys start to give their taxes to the Taliban instead of the state and hopefully you guys and your families would love to serve under the Taliban rule.

taxes must not be used to make civil wars, we know how our taxes were used in 1971, so its better to use taxes using our brain than using the emotions and thinking from our arseholes

 

[TaimiKhan]

I am sure none of the Tehreek - i - Insaaf members "side" with terrorism , TTP etc. I am sure you know that quite well. Proposing talks instead of military operations is never a wrong idea.

As for the taxes , they are there to pay for our security & military should and will use it in the rightest possible way. Swat should have had a military base ages ago , its something that has been long overdue.

Regards:

Why doesn't then Imran Khan takes the first step and ask those militants what they want and tries to become the negotiator between both the parties. He never offered his services, rather he uses this card to his own use and play with the masses. He blames the govt and military whenever he gets the chance, but he never said that i am going towards the militants to bring a suitable peace in the country.

The day he does that win or lose, i will say he is the man and he is on the right side.

And by the way, you have been on this forum for a long time now, didn't you see what happened when we did negotiations in Swat ?? Or in Bajaur ?? Or in SWA ??

How hard is it to understand that those militants don't want peace, they want anarchy and want to bring in Shariah of their own style, the one they presented in Swat and in Afghanistan. Anyone with common sense by looking at the past and present can see that the militants don't want peace, then why the hell do you guys talk about negotiations when in return the militants ask you for control of whole Pakistan.

You wanna give that to them ?? It seems so with the negotiations cry you or your leader makes, thus is that is what you guys want Pakistan to become, i say, there is no difference left between militants and TI.

Ask Imran Khan to try in real sense, then he would have my respect.

 

[TaimiKhan]

taxes must not be used to make civil wars, we know how our taxes were used in 1971, so its better to use taxes using our brain than using the emotions and thinking from our arseholes

taxes must be used to protect and facilitate the people, be it from internal threats or external ones.

71 was something else, it was the mixture of blunders created by both military and the civilian leadership.

And by choosing good leadership, you can make sure that 71 doesn't happens again.

Swat was the result of weak leadership by the civilian setup, had they been strong in the start things would not have gone bad. Military is not to be blamed solely, such fiascoes are a result of blunders from all parties.

 

[Spring Onion]

have you bothered yourself reading the article?? there is No need to have 2-3 new cantonments, just like there was no need for new GHQ. Its waste of Investor's money !!

Ask Imran Khan how his political career is getting a flight so swiftly or my advice to you is if you are against army then leave PTI )))))))))

 

[Spring Onion]

http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/124882-army-eyes-permanent-bases-swat.html#post2026669

cheer!

Dir/Swat and that entire area is very very vital for Pakistan startegically and if left unmaned we are going to see an increased infiltration by anti-Pakistan terrorist backed by ANA in future and in many cases we might lose territory.

These bases should have been established long ago.

 

[TaimiKhan]

Pardon my ignorance....but didnt the government order the Army to eliminate the terrorists...or the Army decided on its own....If the government ordered Army..then why this feeling amongst general populace ?

The context of the statement should be taken into account before coming up with this statement.

What the people or that guy wanted to say was, that the civilian leadership or the infrastructure which comprised of police and other law enforcement agencies failed to protect them.

Even after the operation, it was the military which on its own started many of the projects, while the civilian setup was still nowhere to be seen, as it was their duty to come back after the elimination of militants and take over and look after the people, but they failed and that gap was filled by the military on its own without the govt asking.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

While Leader's statement wasn't very pleasant, I think it isn't very mature of you either to draw your opinion about a whole political party based on one guy's opinion.

you have a good point, and I am glad that you are distancing yourself from what “leader” said. Actually I cant fault Taimikhan here, because what he has said is based on what we get to hear from Imran Khan on TV and papers. He will stage rallies for restoration of justice and against PPP but I cant recall a single protest against the Taliban (please prove me wrong I will be glad). On TV Mr. Khan denounces the military operations and condemns it as killing “our own” people with the help of American dollars yet such condemnation is not seen when TTP claims the responsibility of bombing cities and beheading and shooting its captives.

So you see Taimikhan is only stating what Jamat Islami infested tehrik e Insaf used to say since the WoT began. Now that Munawar Hassan has made an alliance with the Raiwand tigers (I like that name I will like to patent it), I see a gradual maturity and sanity in Imran Khan, his venom against the Pak Army is also on the decline because its been a while Mushy has left the scene.

Like a big majority, we Pakistanis are fed up with the status quo, but whenever people like me start warming up to Imran Khan we are yet disappointed by his selective criticism. That’s the issue.

I think my taxes have been well spent when the army on the command of the civilian government went in Swat to establish the writ of the state and quashed the terrorism and again helped in flood relief.

 

[Irfan Baloch]

How hard is it to understand that those militants don't want peace, they want anarchy and want to bring in Shariah of their own style, the one they presented in Swat and in Afghanistan. Anyone with common sense by looking at the past and present can see that the militants don't want peace, then why the hell do you guys talk about negotiations when in return the militants ask you for control of whole Pakistan.

You wanna give that to them ?? It seems so with the negotiations cry you or your leader makes, thus is that is what you guys want Pakistan to become, i say, there is no difference left between militants and TI.

Ask Imran Khan to try in real sense, then he would have my respect.

This is the story told by the fleeing residents of the town of Mingora*, when the town came under siege and was going to be attacked by the Pakistan army, The military announced that it will let people leave the place before the assault so they started
leaving the town. the TTP terrorists started setting up the booby traps and mines in all likely routes even before the people had started to run out for safety.

A mild well respected local imam of the mosque who respected Mullah Swati & Mullah Fazlullah approached a group of terrorists who knew who he was and requested them to “halt” the mining of the roads while the civilians are fleeing so that they don’t get killed or maimed by them. Note that he didn’t stop them, condemn them but just requested them to wait until the evacuation was complete.

His headless body was hung by a pole and his head was placed below his feet for all the fleeing civilians to see, whether a note was stuck to his heart with a dagger or not that I cant recall but I think the point was made by the terrorists that they don’t take kindly any suggestion any advice that is even slightly contrary to what they think is right.


===
* I mentioned Mingora but I might be wrong because it was long time ago I heard this on some news channels or read it on a news paper but the story struck me hard so I rememeber till today.

 

[Leader]

Ask Imran Khan how his political career is getting a flight so swiftly or my advice to you is if you are against army then leave PTI )))))))))

The establishment may need me, but I don't need the establishment." Imran Khan


..... But the only meeting he says he had with a senior general was over six months ago. "I went to see General Pasha about terrorism only," he says, naming the head of Pakistan's ISI spy agency. "And Pasha agreed with me, that if we disengage from this war on terror, we'll be able to control the terrorism inside Pakistan." IMRAN KHAN

 

[air marshal]

Aftermath of disaster and conflict: Army filling the void in Swat

MINGORA: Two years since the army stamped out a Taliban insurgency and restored peace in Swat valley, new threats risk delaying a handover of the valley to civilian leaders.

After years of extremist violence, a military offensive and devastating floods, local tourists this summer started coming back to the lush valleys, bubbling rivers and superb mountains of the famed north-western district. But if the scenery hasn’t changed, visitors from Islamabad, Lahore or Karachi need to negotiate a more recent fixture: the omnipresent uniformed soldiers and beige military vehicles.

In the summer of 2009, the army sent 30,000 troops into battle against Taliban fighters controlled by Maulana Fazlullah, who since 2007 had terrorised people with a campaign of beheadings, violence and attacks on girls’ schools. By July 2009 the army declared the region back under control and said the rebels had all been killed, captured or had fled. Other than a suicide bombing in the main town of Mingora in July 2010, Swat has since lived in peace.

But two years on, there are still more than 25,000 soldiers in Swat filling the void left by years of conflict. Former administrative offices, luxury homes or hotels with panoramic views, from Mingora to the northern reaches of the valley, the army has requisitioned dozens of buildings to house its troops.

Locals make fun of the army’s prolonged stay in a beautiful landscape with a climate far less punishing than the heat-blasted plains of the south.

“They’re taking advantage. The clear air, the countryside, the luxury homes are better than ordinary camps,” smiled Iftikhar Ali, 24, a student in the suburbs of the town of Madyan.

Everyone knows, however, that the army came to save them twice in the last two years: in kicking out the Taliban and during floods last year, which cut off 80 per cent of the population of Swat from the rest of the country.

“The army did a lot for us. They cleared roads, rebuilt bridges, gave us food rations, while the government was all promises and didn’t give us a single penny,” said Mohammed Iqbal, who sells clothes in Behrain, a tourist town partly devastated by the floods.

But the population of Swat, for a long time an autonomous princely state and without any military bases before 2009, is getting tired of the overt military presence, particularly the numerous checkpoints which hinder free movement.

Sardar Ali, 30, a worker in Mingora, acknowledged that checkpoint practices had eased in recent months, but said he was still fed up. “Soldiers don’t listen to people’s complaints. Sometimes they are brutal and cruel; they beat people who rush to go through, even when it is for a medical emergency.”

Meanwhile a 40-year-old peasant, Inayatur Rehman, said, “The army should stay in Swat, because the Taliban can come back. But soldiers have to stay in cantonments, not on the streets” — a view shared by a number of Swatis.

The army says 80 per cent of its checkpoints have been dismantled or handed over to police in the last year. It also insists it will hand over control to the civilian administration.

General Javed Iqbal, commander of the area, talked about a civilian transfer within “several months” as part of a “gradual process” in which “several steps still have to be taken”.

But it seems a return to normal could take much longer.

The army is planning to move into three or four cantonments, said Iqbal, adding that the construction of the buildings alone will take two years.

Then there is a spike in unrest in the neighbouring district of Dir, where the Taliban assaulted a police post in early June killing 10 policemen. Dir borders the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan where a number of security officials believe Fazlullah and some of his fighters sought refuge.

“I am concerned,” admitted Iqbal. “It is going to impact the process, but will not derail it.”

The head of the civilian administration in Swat, Kamran Rehman, said he is ready to take over immediately, but that it’s up to the army. “Maybe in the coming one year,” he mused.

But one security official dismissed that out of hand. “My guess is it will take two or three more years,” he said.

Aftermath of disaster and conflict: Army filling the void in Swat – The Express Tribune

 

[TaimiKhan]

This is the story told by the fleeing residents of the town of Mingora*, when the town came under siege and was going to be attacked by the Pakistan army, The military announced that it will let people leave the place before the assault so they started
leaving the town. the TTP terrorists started setting up the booby traps and mines in all likely routes even before the people had started to run out for safety.

A mild well respected local imam of the mosque who respected Mullah Swati & Mullah Fazlullah approached a group of terrorists who knew who he was and requested them to “halt” the mining of the roads while the civilians are fleeing so that they don’t get killed or maimed by them. Note that he didn’t stop them, condemn them but just requested them to wait until the evacuation was complete.

His headless body was hung by a pole and his head was placed below his feet for all the fleeing civilians to see, whether a note was stuck to his heart with a dagger or not that I cant recall but I think the point was made by the terrorists that they don’t take kindly any suggestion any advice that is even slightly contrary to what they think is right.


===
* I mentioned Mingora but I might be wrong because it was long time ago I heard this on some news channels or read it on a news paper but the story struck me hard so I rememeber till today.

Yups, it was right in Mingora. Plus, this is just one of the hundreds of incidents.