Pakistanis in Swat fear Taliban come back

PAKISTAN: Frightened civilians fear the Taliban will pounce again on Pakistan’s Swat as residents try to rebuild shattered lives and shot nerves in the mountain valley once likened to Switzerland.

Pakistan claims the military has “eliminated” the extremists, two years after they rose up under an militant cleric to enforce repressive Islamic laws and more than two months after launching a new offensive under US pressure. But stringent security checks, unexploded ordnance and ruined homes lie in wait for some of Pakistan’s nearly two million people displaced by fighting between government forces and Taliban militants across the northwest.

“I can smell them. I’m still afraid of them,” said Badar Gul on the outskirts of Mingora, where his bus stalled in a snarl of vehicles carrying home people encouraged by the government to think the worst is over. The 65-year-old Gul was headed with his five-member family to the northern town of Charbagh, desperate to leave his refugee camp but uncertain about the future in Swat, whose rich tourist industry was decimated by the Taliban.

“The Taliban may come back and the Taliban still have hideouts in the hilly areas,” said Gul, whose bus was laid on by the government to repatriate families from Jalozai camp on the sweltering lowland plains.

Voluntary returns have been going on for weeks. An army spokesman claimed Tuesday that nearly 100,000 families have returned to Swat. Pakistan launched its latest offensive to dislodge Taliban guerrillas from districts in and around the valley last April after rebels flouted a peace deal and advanced into new territory further south towards Islamabad.

Mingora, Tuesday, AFP