third eye
ELITE MEMBER
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2008
- Messages
- 18,519
- Reaction score
- 13
- Country
- Location
I am pasting excerpts, some of these are strange....
Mullah Radio re-emerges as a threat | DAWN.COM
ISLAMABAD: Shortly after sneaking across the Afghan border this week, more than 100 militants loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Fazlullah waited patiently on a mountain for Pakistani troops to approach.
Several days later, the fighters released a video of what they said were the heads of 17 ambushed soldiers, along with their identification cards.
Laid across a white sheet, they were a chilling reminder of the major security threat the man once known as FM Mullah or Mullah Radio still poses to US ally Pakistan, three years after the army pushed him out of the Swat Valley, a former tourist spot he terrorised.
He is a very big problem for Pakistan, said a Western diplomat.
During his heyday, Fazlullah, who like many senior Taliban members is known as a mullah, or preacher, organised thousands of fighters who roamed picturesque Swat, imposing his radical version of Islam.
Opponents, and those deemed immoral, were publicly flogged, or even beheaded and hung in squares and at intersections.
Girls schools and government buildings were burned down.
Nowadays, Fazlullahs men control a 20-km stretch of the rugged and largely unpatrolled border with Pakistan from areas in Afghanistans forbidding Nuristan province, described by nearby US troops as the dark side of the moon.
From there, Fazlullah, a burly man in his thirties with a heavy black beard, plots cross-border raids that dont kill many soldiers but agitate Pakistans military, which thought it had defeated him during a Swat offensive in 2009.
....
Sirajuddin Ahmad, Fazlullahs spokesman and cousin, said the groups aim was to recapture Swat, and take control of Pakistan.
The establishment of sharia (Islamic law) is our goal, and we will not rest until we achieve it. We will fight whoever stands in our way, he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.
....
Fazlullah, once known for fiery radio sermons, was the first Taliban leader that took control of an area in Pakistan outside the unruly ethnic Pashtun tribal belt along the Afghan border.
...
Nuristan police chief Ghulamullah Nooristani says there are no signs that anyone intends to eliminate Fazlullah, even though he was creating havoc for people there, charging illegal taxes, stealing supplies from trucks and sometimes killing drivers.
We cant attack them because they are armed with light and heavy weapons which are much better than ours, he said. If we get support from the central government or coalition forces we will be able to destroy their strongholds.
Fazlullahs fighters usually slip across the border into Pakistan at night and take positions on high ground.
Mullah Radio re-emerges as a threat | DAWN.COM
ISLAMABAD: Shortly after sneaking across the Afghan border this week, more than 100 militants loyal to Pakistani Taliban leader Fazlullah waited patiently on a mountain for Pakistani troops to approach.
Several days later, the fighters released a video of what they said were the heads of 17 ambushed soldiers, along with their identification cards.
Laid across a white sheet, they were a chilling reminder of the major security threat the man once known as FM Mullah or Mullah Radio still poses to US ally Pakistan, three years after the army pushed him out of the Swat Valley, a former tourist spot he terrorised.
He is a very big problem for Pakistan, said a Western diplomat.
During his heyday, Fazlullah, who like many senior Taliban members is known as a mullah, or preacher, organised thousands of fighters who roamed picturesque Swat, imposing his radical version of Islam.
Opponents, and those deemed immoral, were publicly flogged, or even beheaded and hung in squares and at intersections.
Girls schools and government buildings were burned down.
Nowadays, Fazlullahs men control a 20-km stretch of the rugged and largely unpatrolled border with Pakistan from areas in Afghanistans forbidding Nuristan province, described by nearby US troops as the dark side of the moon.
From there, Fazlullah, a burly man in his thirties with a heavy black beard, plots cross-border raids that dont kill many soldiers but agitate Pakistans military, which thought it had defeated him during a Swat offensive in 2009.
....
Sirajuddin Ahmad, Fazlullahs spokesman and cousin, said the groups aim was to recapture Swat, and take control of Pakistan.
The establishment of sharia (Islamic law) is our goal, and we will not rest until we achieve it. We will fight whoever stands in our way, he told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location in Afghanistan.
....
Fazlullah, once known for fiery radio sermons, was the first Taliban leader that took control of an area in Pakistan outside the unruly ethnic Pashtun tribal belt along the Afghan border.
...
Nuristan police chief Ghulamullah Nooristani says there are no signs that anyone intends to eliminate Fazlullah, even though he was creating havoc for people there, charging illegal taxes, stealing supplies from trucks and sometimes killing drivers.
We cant attack them because they are armed with light and heavy weapons which are much better than ours, he said. If we get support from the central government or coalition forces we will be able to destroy their strongholds.
Fazlullahs fighters usually slip across the border into Pakistan at night and take positions on high ground.