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"What Pakistanis don't understand about Pak Taliban.
People in the entire Pushtoon culture do not ever try to kill women and children, and Pak Taliban are part of that culture. However, they also believe in REVENGE. So it is futile to bomb the Pak Taliban as the military has been doing. The more the military bombs them, the more they want revenge. They are not scared of the army's firepower.
The Pakistani response is to hang the Pak Taliban. On December 19, they hanged two prisoners who had nothing to do with the attack on the army school. Also, the military is again bombing Taliban areas and on December 18 claimed to have killed another 77 Pak Taliban. All those killed have families who will want revenge. They were not involved in the school attack, so the families feel wronged and that their men were killed for no reason. Taliban don't kill people because they are Pakistanis but the army is bent on killing everyone who is part of the Taliban."
Pakistan's Rulers Shaken by Taliban attack on Army School: Secularists & Shias call for blood.
"Hang them all."
Maulana Abdul Aziz Condemns Attack on North Waziristan: All other Islamic Groups bow to Regime Propaganda.
New Trend analysis by Kaukab Siddique
December 16 was a terrible day for Pakistan's ruling elites. Six young Pak Taliban jumped over the wall of the army school, adjacent to the military colony in Peshawar, and attacked students holding a western style celebration in the auditorium. They called on students to stand aside if they were from military families, and then shot them. It was horrific: 132 teenagers killed. Blood all over the place.
Troops battled the Taliban youth and by the time the fighting ended all six assailants were dead as were six Pakistani troops and military teachers.
Pakistani elites expressed horror on radio, television and in newspapers and on line. It was described as the biggest crime in the history of Pakistan.
The editor of New Trend engaged numerous writers on the Internet and urged them to condemn ALL attacks on children. All children, he said, are precious, and all children killed should be condoled. The editor also interacted with a group of retired army officers and their supporters. NOT ONE OF THEM was willing to condole the death of Taliban children. They see only the tragedy of the army's children. Thus the moral outrage in Pakistan is very selective and is aimed ONLY at the Pak Taliban.
There is a good reason for this double standard.
The Pak Taliban have no media. The media are controlled entirely by secularists and shias and to a much smaller extent by supporters of Jamaate Islami.
So when the Taliban attacked the school, it was for Pakistanis like 9.11 for Americans, that they were being attacked out of the blue for no reason.
Most Pakistanis do not know what the army has done to the Islamic villages in the Frontier areas which support various factions of the Pak Taliban, The army's propaganda branches have been telling Pakistanis that the Pak Taliban are agents of India and have been funded by the Indian intelligence agency RAW. [Pakistani regime is very friendly with India but Pakistanis do not see this.]
What Pakistanis don't understand about Pak Taliban.
People in the entire Pushtoon culture do not ever try to kill women and children, and Pak Taliban are part of that culture. However, they also believe in REVENGE. So it is futile to bomb the Pak Taliban as the military has been doing. The more the military bombs them, the more they want revenge. They are not scared of the army's firepower.
The Pakistani response is to hang the Pak Taliban. On December 19, they hanged two prisoners who had nothing to do with the attack on the army school. Also, the military is again bombing Taliban areas and on December 18 claimed to have killed another 77 Pak Taliban. All those killed have families who will want revenge. They were not involved in the school attack, so the families feel wronged and that their men were killed for no reason. Taliban don't kill people because they are Pakistanis but the army is bent on killing everyone who is part of the Taliban.
How it all began:
When Pakistan came into being, the founder of the country, Mohomed Ali Jinnah, known as Qaide Azam, promised the tribal people of Frontier province that the military would never enter their territories. They became the trusted supporters of Pakistan and an effective buffer against the designs of hostile Afghanistan.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to the uprising of the Afghan people and the resistance came to be led by Islamic teachers and scholars like Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani. Among those who came to help the Afghans was Osama bin Laden.
Unable to defeat the mujahideen, after 9 years of war, the Soviets withdrew unilaterally. This was a great Islamic victory but American and Pakistani interests would not allow the formation of an independent Islamic government in Kabul. The Afghan groups ended up fighting each other and the result was chaos and collapse. Crimes and drugs became the hallmark of the country.
Mullah Umar who was unknown till then, left the medressa system and went forth to punish the violators of women and stood by the weak and the oppressed. A huge movement developed around him. This was the movement of the Taliban [literally "students."]. Afghans are known for their support for those who seek refuge and protection. That's how Osama bin Laden and Mullah Umar came together and formed the historic alliance which changed Muslim history.
After 9.11, America invaded Afghanistan. The bombing campaign which followed was so devastating that it forced the Taliban to withdraw from the cities, The Northern Alliance took over Kabul and Osama bin Laden barely survived after the unprecedented bombing of Tora Bora.
With 9.11, Pakistan came into the picture. General Musharraf betrayed the Taliban, the best friends of Pakistan. He sent 80,000 troops to seal off the border so that America could thoroughly crush the Taliban. The Pakistani army battled those who wanted to go into Afghanistan to fight the Americans.
The Pakistani opposition to Musharraf was so feeble that he tightened his grip on Pakistan and became a sophisticated but ruthless dictator. The political parties and the Islamic groups in Pakistan could not outwit him and dared not oppose him outright. [US drones flew out from within Pakistan to hit the Taliban. Pakistanis did not know this for 5 years]
The only Islamic entity which opposed Musharraf in the name of Islam was the Red Mosque in Islamabad and the women's seminary Jamia Hafsa next to the mosque. The General became so over confident that he attacked the mosque and the women's seminary. Hundreds of young Muslims, including hijabi women and girls, were killed by the army . The mosque was drenched in blood. The Pakistani troops rampaged through the mosque and used phosphorous in the attack. The leader of the mosque, Abdur Rasheed Ghazi [r.a] was killed along with his mother.
Many of the girls killed were from the tribal areas. The tribes who were already demanding Sharia law were shocked beyond measure by the slaughter of innocent women and girls. Such atrocities are simply unheard of in Islamic culture. The support for the Islamic cause grew exponentially. Huge gatherings were held in the region known as Swat to support Sharia. Among the leaders was Maulvi Fazlullah, an ordinary Pakistani who had dedicated himself to the cause of Allah.
The Islamic wave spread out of Swat and got support in the entire tribal belt. When the Islamic groups reached Buner, only 70 miles from Islamabad, the US government was alarmed and urged [or more correctly ordered] Pakistan to take immediate military action Part of the concern was that various Islamic factions in the mountains had coalesced into an Islamic confederation called the Tehreeke Taliban e Pakistan [ TTP] This movement is distinct from the movement led by Mullah Umar in Afghanistan known simply as the Taliban.
A new Pakistani general, Kayani, was in command and he was ruthless beyond all limits. He ordered the ENTIRE population of Swat to leave their homes. More than THREE MILLION people were made homeless. Swat became a free fire zone. Journalists were strictly not allowed. Those civilians who did not leave were targeted, along with the "militants," by long range artillery, helicopter gunships and jet fighters of the Pakistani military. Pakistani tank columns went into each village in Swat. Maulvi Fazlullah fought the army heroically and inflicted serious casualties on the military but superior firepower prevailed. He was injured and hundreds of his fighters were killed. He retreated into a rugged border area of Afghanistan.
After that the Pakistani military went from area to area of the border populations using control of food supply, bombing from the air and thrusting with tanks All the way to South Waziristan, the army became an occupation army terrorizing the population. At least an estimated 30,000 civilians have been killed by the army. BBC pinpointed mass graves into the which the army dumped the victims of the "extra judicial executions" it was carrying out.
North Waziristan
The only area which remained relatively unoccupied, in part, by the Pakistani army, was North Waziristan. America insisted that al-Qaida had found safe haven in North Waziristan and the Pakistani army must take action. For several years, the attack did not happen because Jamaate Islami's [then] leader Munawar Hasan mobilized Pakistanis against the attack. He held rallies in almost every city urging that North Waziristan not be attacked. He warned that if such an attack took place, the Pak Taliban's response would affect all of Pakistan.
Not only the military did not listen to Hasan, it was alarmed that Imran Khan was taking a similar line on North Waziristan. Meanwhile fighting between the Pak Taliban and the army continued in scattered areas all around the tribal belt. The military coordinated US drone attacks to terrorize Pak Taliban and to kill their leaders.
No one in Pakistan had the courage to openly condemn the military's actions. Munawar Hasan came nearest to it when he said that the leader of the Pak Taliban, Hakeemullah Mehsud, killed in a US strike [coordinated by Pakistan], was a martyr. Not only was Munawar Hasan targeted by almost the entire Pakistani media but the army infiltrated Jamaate Islami and Hasan lost the elections held within the Jamaate Islami itself.