Some good news from Pakistan
6/8/2009 at 8:51 AM
There is finally starting to be some good news out of Pakistan. I've been watching the Kakistan news headlines for the last couple weeks and the people of the country have not only united behind military action against the Taliban in Pakistan, but today's headlines show that even villagers formerly supporting the Taliban are seeing them for what they are and turning on them as well. I think it goes a very long way to vindicating the position that the Taliban are an unwelcome threat to the local Muslims in the region. The article is here:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=22603
A short clip:
the armed villagers of Hayagay Sharqi in Dir Upper, backed by the people of dozens of other villages, besieged the militants from all sides, killing six more of them, locals said.
The locals and the Lashkar sources said 12 Taliban militants, including two commanders, had been killed so far in the siege, while fighting was continuing till the filing of this report. Capturing several hamlets with ease, the villagers also torched 21 houses owned by the Taliban and their supporters.
The people of Hayagay Sharqi, located in mountains some 20 kilometres east of Dir town, the district headquarters, launched an armed action against the Taliban to avenge the killing of 49 persons in Friday’s suicide hit at a mosque.
Now that the Taliban are hitting even mosques they are losing the support of even the most conservative Muslim civilians.
For those not familiar there is a region of Pakistan along the Afghan border that has been firmly under Taliban control for years now. The region has so strongly supported the Taliban, that the Pakistan police would not go near the region for fear of their lives. Recently though the Taliban has been pushing further into other parts of Pakistan and the Pakistan military is now fighting an all out war for the region. A few weeks ago all political parties in Pakistan unanimously agreed to support military action to remove the Taliban from the region. Until last week though, the people living in the region controlled by the Taliban supported them, now the Taliban looks to be losing even that.