Taliban militants driven from the Swat Valley by Pakistan's army in recent months are again infiltrating the region's towns and villages, kidnapping and beheading perceived enemies and ambushing soldiers, as hundreds of thousands of refugees return home. Full Story »
Posted by Kaizar Campwala
News media are having a hard time giving consistent answers to the same question: What's the situation in Swat? Depends on who you talk to, it appears. This story quoted from several Swat residents and some local military people, and reports that the Taliban has already *resumed* attacks in the region. CNN, meanwhile, paints a considerably more rosy picture, based mostly on military and UNICEF information: Taliban forces have fled, but it's going to be a while before things return to normal. The Guardian, focusing on one man's return home from a refugee camp, put it somewhere in the middle -- the army has "newfound resolve" and normal life is "percolating," but Bakht Biland still hears gunfire. Dawn does a cursory job explaining the uncertainty among the military and local population. The diversity of sources in this piece makes the Journal's reporting -- far from perfect, but the most realistic -- the most trustworthy for me. Recommended.
The way Western diplomats and some media sang the praise of the Pakistani army, it's no wonder that many want to believe Taliban fighters have been driven back into their caves.