Here is a brief sample of a typical radio broadcast given recently by Maulana Shah Doran, a cleric who has risen to fame for his fiery transmissions in the Swat Valley: "I was coming to meet you people, but the infidels" – the army, police, politicians – "were there, so I cancelled my plans to visit the village of Shamozai Zarkhela. These infidels are opposing Sharia, and I say that if they do not implement it, we will enforce it on our own … they should be torn to pieces instead of being beheaded."
Residents estimate that the militancy that is currently plaguing the valley owes some 90 percent of its strength to a single illegal FM radio station – the same that now broadcasts Maulana Shah Doran – set up by a local cleric in 2006. The story starts back in 1994, when Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the head of the Tehrek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law, or TNSM), began to wage a struggle against the state, demanding the implementation of Sharia in the Malakand division of Swat (see accompanying story, "The establishment a Taliban emirate"). In 2001, Maulana Sufi took 10,000 men to fight the Americans in Afghanistan, and suffered heavy casualties. After fleeing back to Pakistan, the Maulana was imprisoned for seven years. But his son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, was released on bail.
Back in Swat, Fazlullah set up an illegal FM radio station, known as Fazlullah FM, broadcasting on 92 megahertz. The technology to do so was not only quite affordable, costing as little as PKR 15,000 (less than USD 200); it was also completely portable, thus allowing its owners to easily outpace the authorities' attempts to shut them down. Despite the broadcast's relatively small coverage area (it was at first unable even to reach the rim of the Swat Valley), Fazlullah's nightly tirades against the Americans and then-President Pervez Musharraf quickly earned him a degree of fame among the locals, who dubbed him the 'Radio Mullah'. Initially, Fazlullah confined his rhetoric to reformation, which included the recitation and translation of the Quran and Hadith (traditions), as well as the observance of purdah for women. Using the electronic medium, he also advised the destruction of television sets, CDs and VCRs, which he said were sources of loose morality. One particularly insidious element of Fazlullah's doctrine was vehement opposition to the government's anti-polio campaign, which he claimed was a Western scheme to render Muslims infertile.
Eventually, Fazlullah decided to establish a seminary in his native village of Imam Dheri. When he appealed for donations on his broadcast, he received an incredible response. At that time, in the early days, Fazlullah was listened to mostly by women at home (and children); indeed, this was the first time that women of the area had ever been able to listen directly to a preaching mullah, as they are traditionally absent from the actual sermons. At his beckoning, these women donated their jewellery en masse, and he amassed a fortune amounting to millions of rupees. But Fazlullah's popularity among women began to change in late October 2007, when militants loyal to Fazlullah beheaded four policemen, parading their severed heads through Swat. The women started to be less excited about Fazlullah. This incident also marked the start of a reign of fear, as local zealots increasingly looked to the Radio Mullah to fuel a war for the enforcement of Sharia as well as against opponents including politicians, the army, the police and those supporting them. As fighting intensified, the station became increasingly powerful – and ever more threatening to the army, police, politicians and civilians.