The Pakistani military's slow grind through the Taliban controlled district of Swat in the Northwest Frontier Province has finally reached Maulana Fazlullah's stronghold in the town of Imam Dheri. After Fazlullah's compound was overrun, troops found liquor and a prison. The Daily Times reports:
The army also blew up the houses of Fazlullah and his spokesman Maulana Sirajuddin, besides seizing several weapons, computers and some bottles of liquor from the site, army officials said. The liquor was believed to be seized at militants' checkposts from people.
Earlier, troops backed by tanks and gunship helicopters advanced towards Imam Dheri and seized control of a madrassa run by Fazlullah, and an adjacent mosque without any resistance... Major General Nasir Janjua, commander of the Swat operation, told the reporters that the troops had operated very carefully in Imam Dheri to avoid any structural damage to the mosque-madrassa complex... The troops also dismantled a prison set up by militants inside a girls' primary school in Matta and freed dozens of people, an intelligence official told AFP.
Though the reports are all sourced to often unreliable government officials, the finds at Fazlullah's compound and madrassa are consistent with similar raids on Taliban complexes in Afghanistan and al Qaeda camps in Iraq. While al Qaeda and Taliban leaders push the worst forms of Sharia law on their subjects, they very often ignore their own laws. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, for example, is rumored to have had a penchant for pornography and other un-Islamic proclivities.
Fazlullah is one of the most radical Taliban leaders in northwestern Pakistan. He has successfully organized campaigns against polio vaccination and girls schools throughout the region, while calling for the strictest version of Sharia to be implemented throughout Swat.
