PESHAWAR: Taliban militants fleeing Swat and Buner are increasingly seeking refuge in the Shangla district and making their presence felt by attacking government installations and pro-military politicians and elders.
“I am hearing reports that there are now 1,500 militants in parts of Shangla’s Puran Tehsil bordering Buner. They pose a threat to all of us,” said Fazlullah, the young Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA) from Shangla and a relation of former federal minister and PML-Q NWFP President Amir Muqam.
On Wednesday night, Fazlullah’s cousin Haji Khalil Khan, the PML-Q President for Shangla who had been mobilising the people against the Taliban, was killed when a large group of militants attacked his house in Chogha Makhozai village. “The NWFP Chief Minister, Ameer Haider Hoti, who visited Shangla on Thursday to offer his condolences on Haji Khalil’s death also asked me about the militants’ strength in the area. I told him that I haven’t seen the Taliban myself but am aware of their growing presence in parts of Puran Tehsil,” recalled Fazlullah.
Fazlullah’s father Pir Mohammad Khan was killed in a suicide bombing at Amir Muqam’s house in Peshawar’s Hayatabad locality in early 2008. Shangla’s headquarters, Alpurai, was overrun by the Taliban militants, who had mostly come from Swat in 2007. The entire civil and police administration had fled the town. A military operation had to be launched to evict the militants from Shangla at the time, but as has been the case elsewhere, the Taliban gradually returned to parts of the district, particularly to Puran area which is adjacent to Buner. Due to the recent military action in Buner, militants from there have moved to Shangla.
Many militants from Swat, particularly its Charbagh and Khwazakhela Tehsils, have also sought refuge in Shangla.
After gaining strength in Shangla, the militants were reported to have set up roadside checkpoints at certain places, including Shaheed Sar, Hindwano Kandao and Sar Qalla on the Puran-Buner Road. They were patrolling the area and had already blown up a telephone exchange in Puran and fired at a security forces convoy in Martung.
Fazlullah said reports of militants’ attack on his house and that of Amir Muqam weren’t true. “Firing took place near Amir Muqam’s house in the village but it wasn’t attacked,” he clarified the reports appearing in the press.
According to Fazlullah, his family was a target of the militants due to its support for the military operation in Shangla and the rest of Malakand Division. “We are peaceful people. We are against militancy and terrorism. But if a known political family like us isn’t safe, then how could the common people feel confident while living in Shangla,” he argued.
He said security forces should take action against the militants in Shangla but care must be taken to avoid civilian casualties and the use of artillery guns to shell long distance targets be avoided. “We don’t want our poor people to suffer,” he stressed.
On Thursday, the two Taliban militants who were killed in the attack on Haji Khalil’s house were identified. Haji Khalil and his men had fought the militants and killed two of them.
Both were local and hailed from Dheray village in Puran Tehsil. One was Khurshid Ali and the other was identified as Adil. The police arrested Khurshid’s father, named Subedar, along with his brother. Adil’s family members weren’t arrested as they had already disowned and disinherited him for refusing to quit the Taliban.
Taliban arrival in Shangla in growing numbers is a pattern that would be repeated elsewhere in the NWFP in future. They would retreat from areas that are under military attack and move to places where the civil administration and police are weak and the Army has little or no presence. The militants’ strategy is to wage a guerrilla war, create fear among the people and destabilise the area.
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