Pakistan's deal with the devil

Beheadings, martial law, kidnappings: The Taliban is making its presence felt at the gates of one of Pakistan's biggest cities.

By Walter Mayr

Read more: Terrorism, Politics, Afghanistan, News, Pakistan, Taliban, Pervez Musharraf, Osama Bin Laden, Al Qaeda

July 8, 2008 | PESHAWAR, Pakistan --
The situation changed overnight in Peshawar. The villas in the posh suburb of Hayatabad, hidden behind acacias, palms and oleander bushes, are now directly on the front line. The Pakistani security forces have declared war on the Muslim fundamentalists who are said to have taken up positions in the immediate vicinity.

Eight armored vehicles belonging to the Pakistani Frontier Corps stand ready to move out in the courtyard of Peshawar's Beaconhouse School. Riflemen are positioned behind sandbagged emplacements at strategically important intersections. Pakistani anti-terror units and paramilitary forces in black uniforms are on patrol in the area, their submachine guns at the ready.

But where is the enemy? Outside the city, in the direction of the Khyber Pass, the sound of exploding heavy artillery rounds can be heard every few seconds.

Roger Sarfaraz listens as the monotonous recurrence of muffled detonations keeps breaking the silence of an oppressively hot summer day. He is standing on the edge of Hayatabad and looks like someone who could tell you right down to the last decimal point what this war is costing him. This smart-looking, athletically built man wearing a Playboy T-shirt is a real estate agent.

With property prices currently at around $315 per square meter in the suddenly embattled development, a secure environment has to be part of the deal. Several years ago, a security wall was built around the settlement -- a three-meter-high concrete wall capped off with barbed wire. It was originally intended to protect the Hayatabad's well-off inhabitants from undesired contact with their neighbors -- people from the tribal areas of the Northwest Frontier Province whose mud houses can be seen from here.

The Empire of the Taliban

Now, in addition to the wall, three Pashtuns from the paramilitary Frontier Corps stand guard on the demarcation line with Chinese-made grenade launchers shouldered and ready to fire. But like the concrete wall and the barbed wire, they won't be able to do much to stem the tide of onrushing Taliban forces. The fighters from the tribal areas have no need to climb over the wall. They simply drive their SUVs and pickups in on the main road -- direct from the empire of the Taliban.

What the inhabitants of Hayatabad know about the world that exists just a stone's throw away from them is what they read in the newspapers or are told on television: that black-bearded, kaftaned mullahs preach to their disciples the need to wage war to defend the strict moral code of Islamic fundamentalism or that "spies" are beheaded with butcher knives, tribal elders shot, and infidels persecuted barbarically.

Still, the Pakistani government didn't get around to ordering troops into Peshawar to counteract the threat until the very end of June. By then, the rich suburb of Hayatabad had long since become a testing ground for the Islamists' advance. Last November a suicide bomber blew himself up outside the home of former Political Affairs Minister Amir Muqam after being stopped at the gate by security personnel. Four people were killed in the attack -- and since then the settlement has been on the alert.

Now, though, the bearded Taliban come into town in broad daylight, crowded together in the beds of their pickup trucks. After repeated hit-and-run raids, including the abduction of half a dozen prostitutes, this rich section of town has grabbed headlines in the press as a "kidnappers' paradise."

Massive Pressure

Real estate agent Roger Sarafaz's brother was abducted by the Taliban just a few days ago. Together with 16 other hostages, all of them members of Pakistan's Christian minority, he was dragged off to the tribal areas, where he was beaten with rifle butts until he was unconscious. He was released only after massive pressure was brought to bear on the Taliban, not least of all by Western players. Since then the Pakistani government has been carrying out a military operation aimed at putting a stop to brazen attacks of this kind by the ethnic Pashtun fundamentalists who are at home in the regions along the border close to the Khyber Pass.

Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province has a population of 21 million. It's the country's Achilles' heel and one of the burdens left behind by British colonial rule. In 1893 the British drew the Durand Line dividing what was then British India from Afghanistan. Since 1947, the line has been the internationally recognized border between Afghanistan and Pakistan -- but it also goes right through the middle of the Pashtun tribal areas. East of the Khyber Pass up to the outskirts of the city of Peshawar the effects of the British Raj live on -- Pakistani law is not recognized in the "ilaka ghair," or the "land of the lawless," as the tribal areas are known.

For centuries decisions on right and wrong have been made here by a "jirga," a council of tribal elders -- an institution that is today monitored by a "political agent" appointed by the Pakistani government. At least that was the case until the Taliban began seeking refuge in Pakistan in 2001. Mehmood Shah, Pakistan's former security chief in the tribal areas, refers to this as the "human fallout" of the war against Afghanistan.

The radical Islamic militants who fled across the border found everything they needed for a new beginning -- brothers in arms from the time when they were allied against the Soviet regime in Afghanistan, a large supply of madrasa students who were now without jobs and a small group of "Maliks," tribal elders who were paid for their loyalty to the military regime of General Pervez Musharraf. The Taliban cut into the traditional structures of Pashtun society like a sharp ax into soft wood.

Next page: "I'm afraid that when the time comes, the inhabitants will simply go out and welcome the Taliban"