Joy of return tempered by army warning that many Taliban are still on the loose
guardian.co.uk
When Bakht Biland reached his house, having run the gauntlet of tense army checkpoints, bullet-pocked hotels and the deserted city square where the Taliban used to string up their bloodied victims, he had just one thought. "Finally," said the 55-year-old taxi driver, prising open his front door. "I will sleep in a soft bed tonight."
Small comforts carry big hopes in the Swat region of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province. The misery of war could be nearing an end now; and, after 12 weeks of battles between the Pakistan army and the Taliban, exiled residents are flooding home.
The crowded, steamy, camps of the plains are emptying as convoys of buses, trucks and even rickshaws thunder up the mountain road into Swat, twisting through a landscape dotted with the debris of recent battle. So far, 500,000 of an estimated 2 million displaced people have returned to the valley and surrounding Buner and Dir districts, according to government figures.
Yet the joy of return is tempered by worries that the fight is not truly over. Shortly after Bakht reached Mingora on Friday an ugly noise echoed across the city: the rattle of a helicopter gunship spewing bullets at a Taliban hold-out across the river.
"I don't think the Taliban can come back," said Bakht cautiously, fingering his prayer beads. "But if they do, we'll have to flee again. That would be the worst thing."
The journey home started in a small camp off a busy road in Mardan district, which has borne the brunt of the refugee crisis. At dawn his seven children loaded their meagre possessions into the rear of a pick-up. Then his burka-clad wife clambered into the back. They left behind two small canvas tents, unbearably muggy even at eight at the morning, which had collapsed in a monsoon squall two nights earlier. "It's time to leave," he said.
Security was tight. Long tailbacks formed at checkpoints as soldiers waving wand-like devices checked for explosives. Bakht's van was channelled through a giant, million-dollar x-ray scanner imported from Canada.
As the road climbed into the mountains it passed Churchill Picket, a small fort where Winston Churchill battled restive tribesmen over a century ago, then levelled into Swat. Tank tracks scored the valley road, sometimes swerving through orchards, and many shops and houses had been crushed. But the fighting seemed to have been limited: buildings, not neighbourhoods, were destroyed.
Bakht's van halted at a petrol station, where volunteers with an Islamic charity handed out snacks.
A small man with a grey beard, Bakht admitted he once had a soft spot for the Taliban. He was drawn to their Islamic ideals, he said, particularly to the radio sermons of their clerical leader, Maulana Fazlullah. "His voice was so sweet. Even if you heard it, you would support him."
His enthusiasm waned as Qur'an thumping turned to Kalashnikov fire earlier this year. As mortar shells whistled over their roof, Bakht's children lay awake at night, crying with fear. And so, reluctantly, he fled on 15 May, carrying a few bundles and the equivalent of £25 in his pocket. Now, going back, his worry was whether his house had been hit.
An ominous sight greeted him on the edge of Mingora: a clutch of soldiers standing over a pair of blindfolded men – Taliban suspects captured a few hours before. It was a mixed blessing: a sign of the army's newfound resolve, but also a reminder of the lingering menace.
A few intersections in Mingora had been damaged by fighting, but in general most buildings were left unscathed. Soldiers, paramilitaries and police patrolled the streets. Reviving the police is seen as an urgent priority; under the Taliban, Swat's police were killed, kidnapped or scared into quitting. Now the government is recruiting 2,000 "community police", effectively a civilian militia, to flush the militants out.
Bakht's van curled through the narrow streets into Green Chowk. Under the Taliban this junction was the city's most notorious spot, a place where the militants dumped their bloodied victims – tribal leaders, women dancers, teachers – on a concrete plinth. Now the authorities plan to rename it Peace Square or Martyrs' Square. Finally, Bakht was home, pulling up outside his four-room house. To his great relief, it was untouched. "I only had a cheap lock," he said. "We had never left home before."
Speaking from behind the privacy of an ajar door, his wife, Hajra, said she was happy to be back. But, she added in an accusatory tone, she was embarrassed that their daughter, who had got married while they lived in the tent, had not received a proper send off. Bakht winced but said nothing.
Normal life was slowly percolating through the rest of the city, too. Teenagers whacked cricket balls on the grounds where clerics once delivered fiery anti-government speeches. Older men grumbled about the high price of food and lack of mobile phone coverage, but expressed relief at being home.
Not everyone had left. Shamin Khan, an elderly eccentric with plastic flowers pinned to his clothes, emerged from his quarters with tales of how he had been victimised by both sides – kidnapped for two days by the Taliban, who accused him of being a spy, and shot at by army snipers, who mistook him a Taliban.
Across the river, at Imam Dehri, the Taliban headquarters was empty, its chairlift link to the main city destroyed. An army spokesman, Major Nasir Khan, said that up to a quarter of the Taliban's 5,000 fighters were still on the loose, mostly concentrated in remote pockets along the border with Dir. There was no word of Fazlullah, he said, but the security forces had just captured two vehicles belonging to him. "We're not leaving anything to chance this time," he said. "The menace will be eliminated."
But the returning refugees will need more than words. At dusk, vehicles were still entering Mingora, filled with hot, tired and anxious families.
Khurshid Ali, a clothes trader, poked his head out a window as his vehicle crawled through a security check. "I had been happy to return earlier," he said. "But I just heard some gunfire a few moments ago. We had been told the fighting was over."
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