Pro-Taliban radio preacher Maulana Fazlullah, known as the FM mullah, has incited Pakistani Islamists to the point that nine of the 12 districts of Pakistan’s Swat Valley have been taken over by Islamist militants. Sharia law has been established in these areas, television and music have been banned, women are prohibited from going to school and are required to wear veils, and men are required to grow beards.

The Pakistani military has launched an operation to reclaim the valley. Yet, even though 15,000 Pakistani troops have been deployed with numerous helicopters, tanks and armored vehicles, the area has not yet been reclaimed from the approximately 500-strong Islamist militants.

Most of the insurgents are home-grown—Pakistanis nourished by resentment for the current Pakistani government and by jihadist teachings of the FM mullah.

Earlier this summer, Islamists belonging to Lal Masjid, or the Red Mosque, led by two brothers, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Abdul Rashid Ghazi, sought to establish a Taliban-like system of sharia law within the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s raid on the Red Mosque in July marked one of his biggest crackdowns on Islamic terror since he came to power in 1999.

Musharraf’s suppression of Islamists in Islamabad and the Swat Valley has intensified his confrontation with extremists across Pakistan. The high death toll unleashed by both these operations seems to be further turning popular support against Musharraf. Fazullah’s takeover of the Swat Valley followed, and may have been in response to, the government’s strike against the Red Mosque.

Musharraf justified his decision to declare emergency rule on November 3 by declaring that such drastic measures were necessary to halt the growing threat of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. Now, however, he seems to be backing down, under international pressure. He has scheduled parliamentary elections for January 8, and his official spokesman confirms that the president will quit the army on Wednesday (November 28). Gen. Ashfaq Kayani has been named Musharraf’s successor as army chief as soon as Musharraf quits the army and is sworn in as a civilian president.

United States President George W. Bush is optimistic about Musharraf’s steps to get Pakistan back on the path to democracy. Yet, it will be hard for Pakistan to fight Islamic terrorism when the support of the people is divided between Musharraf, opposition leaders Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif, and Islamic extremist movements.

Bhutto is considering boycotting the parliamentary elections in January unless Musharraf lifts emergency rule before then. Pakistan’s Daily Times editor Najam Sethi has claimed that “Bhutto was unlikely to boycott the elections because pro-Taliban Islamic parties would probably take part. If Ms. Bhutto doesn’t contest the elections and sits with Nawaz Sharif, whereas the mullahs go ahead and participate, that could lead to a very interesting situation.”

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