Taliban backing slumps among UK Pashtuns

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Taliban backing slumps among UK Pashtuns​

* Violence in NWFP shocks Pashtuns in UK g Swat fighting marks turning point
* Youngsters, community leaders speak out against Taliban

BIRMINGHAM: There was a time when young ethnic Pashtuns in Britain might dream about returning to the lands of their forefathers to fight for the Taliban, following links of blood and tribe.

Now, when Pashtun teenagers discuss the Taliban, they see the hardline militia as the enemy. Pashtuns in Britain, among Europe’s most insular and traditional Muslim minorities, are reacting with horror at the loss of life and destruction produced by the conflict in Swat and other parts of the northwest. Their readiness to blame the Al Qaeda-aligned group for the turmoil may boost efforts to counter radical recruitment among British youths of south Asian origin, experts say.

“They are killing women and children,” says Kashif Yousufzai Khan, a slight-looking 17-year-old Pashtun in jeans and T-shirt in the Hockley district of the industrial city of Birmingham. “I feel very upset about what they are doing.” Britain is home to the largest community of Pashtuns in the West. They number up to 100,000, among a wider population of more than a million people of Pakistani and Afghan ancestry who settled in the former colonial power over the past 50 years. The community has acquired a reputation as inward-looking and reticent, but the humanitarian crisis in the northwest is prompting community leaders to speak out loudly against the Taliban and in support of its army foes.

The strands of Taliban support that once existed within the community have all but withered away, its leaders say. They describe it as a significant change in opinion, because some in the community had regarded the Taliban as a mixture of freedom fighters and dispensers of local justice, and because it echoes a switch in broad public sentiment in Pakistan. “Innocent blood has been spilled. The Taliban’s actions are not morally right,” says Yousuf Javed, 18. Jahan Mahmood, a south Asian community expert partly of Pashtun ancestry, said he had seen a dramatic change in people’s view of the Taliban because of the displacement of people, desecration of shrines and “disregard for life” in the country. Sympathising with the strict Islamists was once respectable.

Pakistan backed the Taliban when it took control of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. While it officially dropped its support after the Sept. 11 attacks, Islamabad was suspected of continuing to take a permissive line with the group.That perception changed drastically in May when the army began a big assault on the Taliban in the Swat valley. The offensive has won a welcome from many in Pakistan, angered by what they saw as Taliban excesses. “I’ve not seen a single person who says the Taliban is right,” said Samina Khan, a presenter at Manchester-based British Pakistani television broadcaster DM Digital. “The violence caused a lot of frustration because people here have friends and relatives in the conflict-zone,” said Rab Khan Khattak of the British Pashtun Council. Pashtuns are “very alienated”, he said. A proud people, they are often unwilling to ask for benefits or apply for grants from the local authorities that might be available to them. reuters

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

US envoy sees Pakistanis backing fight vs Taliban​

Mon Jun 8, 2009 11:22pm EDT

By William Schomberg

NEW YORK, June 8 (Reuters) - Pakistan's politicians and armed forces are showing more cohesiveness in the fight against Islamic extremists and public opinion is increasingly on the government's side, the U.S. envoy to the region said on Monday.

"Public opinion is solidifying behind the government. People are really fed up with what the Taliban and the other extremists have done," Richard Holbrooke told Reuters shortly after arriving in the United States from Pakistan.

Pakistan's military has been fighting the Taliban in the Swat valley, northwest of the capital, for more than a month after the militants took advantage of a peace pact to conquer new areas in the region.

It remains "critically important" that the campaign against the Taliban and other extremists should succeed and that an estimated 2.5 million refugees displaced by fighting should be able to return home securely, he said.

"So this is far from over," Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, said after a speaking engagement in New York late on Monday.

"But events in the last few weeks have been very positive from the government's point of view. I also found an increased sense of cohesiveness on this issue between the government, the opposition and the army."

Compared with the political crisis of three months ago, Pakistan now has opposition leader Nawaz Sharif in support of the government on the fight against the Taliban and the military is also behind the campaign.

"That's a big step forward," Holbrooke said.

Pakistan's offensive to expel Taliban militants from the Swat valley has been welcomed by Western allies worried that the nuclear-armed country was sliding into chaos.

The military says more than 1,200 militants and 90 soldiers have been killed in the Swat offensive.

Pakistan's support is vital in a broader campaign to defeat al Qaeda and stabilize Afghanistan.

In his speech on Monday to the American Council on Germany, a transatlantic business and policy forum, Holbrooke renewed his calls on other Western countries to provide more aid to help the refugees in Pakistan who fled the fighting.

"The international community has not responded adequately to their needs so far," he said.

The United States has pledged more than $300 million for the Pakistani refugee crisis, compared with less than $200 million from the rest of the world, Holbrooke said.

"We have called on other countries to join us in this effort. In the end we are going to need several billion dollars for this small part of Pakistan."

Conditions for the refugees are relatively good but they need to return home to avoid further problems, he said.

"Politically they must go back. If they do not, there will be a political explosion," Holbrooke said, praising efforts by Germany to help address the situation.

"But we really hope there will be more support from other countries." (editing by Mohammad Zargham)

US envoy sees Pakistanis backing fight vs Taliban | Reuters

 

[Patriot]

Yet we have Mullahs and people like Hamid Mir saying Talibans are innocent.Do these people not care about the Pushtuns who are directly affected by these bastards?I think GEO OFfice should be raided by Talibans.