Taliban threatens Pakistan city

Sunday Telegraph:

Should they let their daughters go back to lessons in the rubble of their school, blown up by the Taliban in the middle of the night, or should they keep them safe at home?

Hashim, the caretaker who was held at gunpoint by masked gunmen, was warned that they would be back if the school is rebuilt. He fears that next time they could blow it up with pupils inside.

Yet this is not Kandahar, the Taliban capital of southern Afghanistan, but Peshawar - a city of 1.4 million people in neighbouring Pakistan, once celebrated as a cultural haven for artists, musicians and intellectuals.

A year ago schools were considered safe in the city, the capital of North-West Frontier Province. But the Taliban insurgency that has been growing in the wild mountains that rise in the distance is spreading into urban Pakistan.

Clerics and political leaders critical of the Taliban have been kidnapped and shot dead, around 15 suicide bombers have attacked inside the city, and to escape kidnappers businessmen are giving up and moving to the capital Islamabad, two hours drive away, or overseas to Dubai if they can afford to.

Nobody has ever known the city so fearful.

Musli Khan, a clerk who lives near the remains of the school, was disconsolately picking through the mess. The main building collapsed from the force of the explosion and the walls that were left were riddled with giant cracks.

Some chairs and schoolbooks had been pulled from the rubble, he said, gesturing at a damaged Koran.

"And these people say they are Muslims," Mr Khan muttered, shaking his head sadly before checking himself: it is dangerous now to be too critical of the Taliban, especially in suburbs on the outskirts of Peshawar. Here, at night, the police must lock themselves into fortified outposts for safety, and armed fighters prowl at will.

...

One of Pakistan's mistakes is in refusing the help of the US in training people for counterinsurgency warfare. They obviously need. The need to be able to protect the people from the intimidation of the Taliban.

If they can offer the protection they will get the intelligence they need to destroy and defeat the Taliban insurgency. For too long they have ignored the problem and thought it was that of people in Afghanistan, but now it threatens Pakistan too.

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