While the Pakistani military still struggles to roll up the Taliban in Northwest Frontier Province's settled district of Swat, the Taliban continues its campaign elsewhere in the troubled province. With much of the province under Taliban influence or outright control, the Taliban is flexing its muscle in Peshawar, the provincial capital.
The Taliban has conducted a campaign of bombings and intimidation against barber, tailor, video, and CD shops across the province. Today, the Daily Times reports shops in Peshawar are now opening "Islamic businesses" as the police are unable to protect them. The police have actually recommended the shopkeepers close down, and expressed their own fear of the Taliban as well.
The shopkeepers did not give up continuing their business until the local police expressed "helplessness" to protect them against any possible attack from militants. "We went to the local police and they disappointed us by saying that we better close down our business if there was a direct threat," the DVD shop owner told Daily Times. Police, however, cited its problems in protecting the businessmen. "Everyone is seeking protection, but we do not have the required number of policemen to provide it," Nisar Khan, station house officer at the University Town Police Station, told Daily Times.
"I am also under threat because of police uniform. What should I do? Should I leave the police or fight back?" he said, adding that he had asked higher officials to look into the shortage of police personnel in Peshawar.
Government officials also told theDaily Times that the Taliban is preparing to take Peshawar mid-2008.
A senior government official said sleeping cells of militants had set June 2008 as the timeframe to tighten the noose around Peshawar, which is likely to come under attack from the south and north, as pro-Taliban militants have made their presence felt as close to Peshawar as 30 kilometres.
He said the previous government of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal and Islamabad were informed about the situation in Darra Adam Khel in south and Mohmand Agency in the north of Peshawar. "Our good luck is that the Taliban have not yet made ground in west (Khyber tribal district), otherwise, Peshawar would have been surrounded from three different directions and it would have been extremely difficult to defend the fort from the three-pronged attack," the official added.
But tribal sources in Bara, Khyber tribal district, said the Taliban had not given up efforts to "create space" to threaten Peshawar from the west. They said the Taliban wanted to block the international highway to cut off Pakistan from Afghanistan.
The supply route to U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan is in direct jeopardy. In the past the Taliban have destroyed fuel and other trucks moving through the Khyber Pass to provide supplies for Coalition forces in Afghanistan.
The problem in the Northwest Frontier Province is far greater than the Pakistani government is prepared to admit. The limited offensive in Swat may temporarily dislodge the Taliban from one district, but the Taliban are pervasive throughout the province.
