I came across this interesting backgrounder.
Swat:
The Swat valley is a wildly beautiful valley, often called the Switzerland of Asia for its natural beauty and until the mid-16th century, remained a Buddhist stronghold, with many Buddhist shrines and statues remaining and now under threat from Islamist iconoclasty. Then, the Yousoufzai (or Yusufzai) tribe of Afghan Pashtuns moved into the district and took over in a predatory migration. Under the Yousoufzai, Swat was very insular until the British suppressed an Islamist uprising in 1897 and did not allow foreign penetration until recent years, when it became a major tourist attraction, even home to a modern ski resort.
Swat is geographically well removed from the main theaters of combat between Taliban-AQ and both the NATO forces in Afghanistan and Pakistani Army and PFC forces. It remained a burgeoning tourist attraction and agricultural garden spot until the great earthquake of October 2005 and is mired in slow reconstruction efforts ever since.
The Rival Dynasties:
The attempt by Fazlullahs TNSM movement to supplant the traditional Swati secular and religious order with his radical vision of Sharia, is a classic example of the long-running rivalry between the secular tribal order in Islam, and radical preachers, who come along periodically among the Arabs, Pashtuns and other peoples of the middle east and South Asia. Waziristan has had four such waves of religious extremisim since 1895, while Swat has experienced waves in 1829-31, 1857-63 and the present crisis. In Swat, Fazlullah is boldly challenging the more traditional Islam as espoused by two local saints, the Pir Baba and the Akhund.
The Tirmizi dynasty descends from the famous Swati holy man, the Pir Baba (born AD 1506), whose given name was Sayyid Ali Tirmizi. Through his line (often referred to as the Sitana or Sethana Sayyids after their home fortress-town), his descendants were recognized as the rightful princes of Swat until 1863 when a crisis over a colony of transplanted Jihadists, the Hindustani Fanatics, aligned with the Tirmizis since 1829, precipitated a British incursion in 1863.
There's more to the 1829-31 events: a prominent outsider, Sayyid Ahmad Shah raised about 1000 "Hindustani Fanatics" and allied with the Yousoufzai to fend of the Sikh army of Ranjit Singh, which was attempting a conquest of the Pashtuns. They settled into Swat as allies of the Tarmazi. Then Ahmad Shah got grandiose before his death in battle in late 1830, even issuing coinage with his image. In Swat, he demanded brides for his followers among other things and settled some "agents" in some villages in the valley and the locals took great offense. A beacon fire was lit on the Hill of Karamar in Jan. 1831 which signaled the villagers to kill all the agents in their sleep[iv]. But the main colony of the Hindustani Fanatics continued on and began to fester again after the Sepoy Muntiny of 1857 and remind one, very much of this present threat from fanatics allied with Taliban (below).
In the past, the Yousoufzai of Swat have demonstrated staying power and determination in resisting invasion against the Moghul Empire, Sikhs and British. In 1863, when the British attempted to enter Swat to eliminate the Jihadist colony, the Yousoufzai fiercely resisted the incursion at Ambela Pass from Oct. 20 to Dec. 17, 1863 (the Ambela Jihad), before Akhund Abdul Ghafar, the saintly Akhund Sahib (teacher 1784-1877) negotiated a deal where the Swatis would eliminate the colony with British observers accompanying them as witnesses. This deal also led to the Akhund replacing the Tirmizis (who had sponsored the Hindustani Fanatics) as the recognized ruler of Swat and the Akhund soon instituted his vision of Sharia law among the Yousoufzai in a way that did not conflict with their Pashtunwali code of honor.
When the princely state of Swat was recognized by the British in 1915, Sayyid Muhammad Abdul-Jabbar Shah of the Tirmizi line briefly ruled until ousted in September 1917 by supporters of the line of Abdul Ghafar. Abdul Ghafars grandson Miangul Gollshahzada Abdul-Wadud, and great grandson Miangul Abdul-Haqq Jahanzab then ruled a peaceful Swat until the princely state was abolished by the Pakistani government in 1969.
Thus both the Tirmizi dynasty and the Akhunds descendants have both religious and secular credibility among the Yousoufzai of Swat and could be part of a consensus proclamation (a Fatwa) from a Swati Jirga designed to counter Maulana Fazlullahs extremist vision of Sharia, Taliban-style.
Swat Today:
With the recovery of Taliban in the FATA region after their unseating in Kabul in 2001, a local radical cleric asserted himself in a northwestern Swat mountain valley tributary to the principal Swat River Valley at the village of Imam Dheri. First, Sufi Muhammad preached Taliban Islam and sent thousands of Swati volunteers to fight for Taliban in Afghanistan under his organization, TNSM. When he was arrested in 2002 for this activity, his young son-in-law (then 23, now 28) Maulana[v] Fazlullah took command, declared an Islamic Emirate, and as of this writing, has built a force of well-armed but only partly-trained radicals, taking over control of some 59 mountain valley villages.
In the Swat District of Pakistan (population of 1.5 million), Maulana Fazlullah has arrogantly declared himself Emir of a pro-Taliban Islamic Emirate and gathered some 4000-4500 well-armed and partially trained followers to his banner and carved out an enclave encompassing some 59 villages. Reports indicate that some 800 of these gunmen are foreigners. In the current crisis, Fazlullahs insurrection has also spread into the neighboring Dir district to the west and Malakand district, to the south.
With modern AK-47s, mortars, machine guns and rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) the TNSM force is better armed than the Pakistani Frontier Corps, a paramilitary organization drawn from the Pashtun Tribes and tasked with maintaining security in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) (pop. 19.4 mil) and neighboring Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) (pop. 3.3 million).[vi] As almost always with turmoil in Islamic lands, Fazlullah is offering an ascetic religious order (regular or temporal) as the alternative to the normal secular leadership of the tribes (the sheiks or Khans). But the offer comes at the point of a gun. As always, the secular leadership will eventually prevail, but not without strong and disciplined help from outside the tribal areas.
Then, between Nov 3-13, Fazlullahs forces seized control of seven of Swats eight major municipalities by overrunning the local police stations and PFC security detachments. It also came out that early in the offensive Fazlullahs men beheaded six of their captives, a heinous violation of the Pashtunwali honor code.
http://www.siri-us.com/issues.html