Under the terms of the latest 'peace deal' in the Provincially Administered Tribal Areas (PATA), the militants have gained everything and the government nothing.
The Swat Valley has been in the news since early 2007, when a group of militants that we now call the 'Swat Taliban' began to succeed in taking over parts of the district by force. When their activities could no longer be ignored a military operation was launched, though it soon became painfully apparent that the militants were more than a match for the Pakistani troops. The sheer brutality of their tactics – including public executions, beheadings and open displays of butchered corpses – convinced most people that the Swat Taliban were not merely a few 'misguided' residents of Swat, waging a war for the imposition of Sharia. Rather, these were battle-hardened fighters with links to extremist organisations in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), Afghanistan and perhaps even beyond.
Suddenly, the Taliban uprising in Swat was international news. This was despite the fact that other areas of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) had already fallen under Taliban control, including parts of the districts of D I Khan and Bannu, and perhaps all of Tank. Not being tourist destinations or easily accessible, however, these areas were largely ignored, even by the local media.
The picturesque, lush green Swat was a different story. Its beautiful valleys and mountains, dense pine forests, rich culture and ancient crafts tradition, coupled with the peaceful and friendly disposition of its residents, made Swat a popular vacation choice with both local and foreign tourists. It was amongst the most educated districts in the province, thanks partly to its former princely ruler's obsession with education. Swat was also a comparatively prosperous district with a legitimate economy, based as much on the rich harvest of rice and fruit as on year-round tourism and remittances from skilled migrant workers. Swat therefore sat uneasily with the other districts in the surrounding area, which were backward in terms of education, prosperity and political awareness. As such, it is extremely ironic that the forces of obscurantism would find Swat such an easy target. For that we need to dig a bit deeper into the history of the problem.