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Overreach cost Taliban popular support

* Lt Gen (r) Orakzai says Sufi’s statements have turned public opinion against Taliban

LAHORE: After the government and the Taliban signed an accord in February mandating the establishment of sharia courts in Malakand, the Taliban started pushing for expansion. This may have been where the Taliban blundered.

“There was a certain kind of a tipping point after the so-called Swat Accord. It was when the Swat Taliban were seen to be overreaching themselves,” MNA and columnist Ayaz Amir has told the Voice of America.

“One or two speeches by Sufi Muhammad that democracy is un-Islamic, the courts are outside the pale of Islam – that, and the advance of the Taliban into Buner.”

Public opinion: Lt-Gen (r) Ali Jan Muhammad Orakzai, a former NWFP governor, says public opinion has decidedly shifted against the Taliban.

“There has been a complete change in the attitude of the entire nation towards these people. ... And the Pakistani nation stands united in defeating their designs because nobody in Pakistan would like these people to take over and establish their version of Islam or impose their version of Islam on the people. There’s quite a sudden change in the mood of the nation.” Others are not so sure. Christine Fair of the RAND Corporation says the public appears to be still deeply conflicted about what is going on and how to deal with it.

“You see a lot of ambivalence. ... You still see a lot of support for peace deals, not a majority, but the country is really divided on whether military solutions or peace deals are the most appropriate way to handle the threat. So what I can see is that the country is deeply divided.”

The United States has been urging Islamabad to root out Taliban sanctuaries in the Tribal Areas. But aggressively taking on the Taliban and its allies has been widely seen in Pakistan as caving in to US pressure and thus politically unpalatable.

The Predator drone airstrikes too have sparked resentment because of civilian casualties. Ayaz Amir says Pakistan is caught between two sides.

“What is threatening the fabric of the Pakistani state are two forces – the Taliban on one side and American desperation in Afghanistan on the other.” Fair says she recognises the resentment the drone attacks cause, but still wonders how Pakistanis blame the United States for the militant problem.

“I’m a little bit confused as to how it is this narrative persists,” she said. “This is not a problem that the United States has made. This is very much coming out of Pakistan’s incessant and unrelenting interest in maintaining some militant groups as strategic assets, while trying to declare other militants to be an enemy of the state.” daily times monitor

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