A new poll shows public opinion in Pakistan has turned sharply against the Taliban and other Islamist militants, even though they still do not trust the United States and President Barack Obama. Reporting on the poll, our Asia specialist in Washington, Paul Eckert, said the WorldPublicOpinion.org poll, conducted in May as Pakistan's army fought the Taliban in the Swat Valley, found that 81 percent saw the Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda as a critical threat to the country, a jump from 34 percent in a similar poll in late 2007. Read Eckert's report here.

(Photo: Pakistani Taliban in Swat, 2 Nov 2007/Sherin Zada Kanju)

The poll shows a wide divergence between Pakistani public opinion and the views of the Taliban on the implementation of sharia, a religious issue sometimes cited to help explain earlier tolerance of the militants. Some 80 percent of the respondents said sharia permits education for girls, one of the first services the Taliban close down when they gain control of an area. And 75 percent said sharia allows women to work, which the Taliban do not.

Reflecting their distrust, 71 percent said they believed the Taliban would not even submit to the sharia courts that they themselves have set up or promised to install as a pure and speedy alternative to Pakistan's corrupt and inefficient civil courts. Only 14 percent supported the Taliban claim that it could provide more effective and timely justice than the state, a claim that partly helped the Islamist militants in the past (although it must be added that only 56 percent expressed trust in the civil courts). Only 9 percent said they thought the Taliban would do better at fighting corruption than the government, which got a lukewarm 47 percent. In any case, these results seem to indicate very little support for trademark Taliban promises that once seemed attractive.

If accurate, these findings mark a major shift from the results of a similar poll by WorldPublicOpinion.org in late 2007, not long after the Pakistani army flushed out Islamist militants who had taken control of the Red Mosque complex in the heart of Islambad. More than 100 died in the raid, including dozens of suspected militants and at least 10 troops. Some 64 percent said the raid was a mistake while only 22 percent supported the decision. A 60 percent majority believed that sharia should play a larger role in Pakistani law than it did at the time.

(Photo: Anti-Taliban rally in Lahore, 19 June 2009/Mohsin Raza)

Another poll, by the International Republican Institute, relativises this shift a bit. Conducted in March, before the height of the Taliban-army clash in Swat and the video of Taliban flogging a teenage local girl that reportedly turned Pakistani opinion against the militants, it shows more sympathy for the Taliban's sharia demands. While 74 percent said religious extremism was a problem in Pakistan, 80 percent supported the introduction of sharia in Swat and 72 percent supported the government peace deal with the Taliban there. Some 56 percent said they would support the Taliban if they demanded sharia in other cities such as Karachi, Multan, Quetta or Lahore.

The relationship between traditional religious views and the Taliban in Pakistan and Afghanistan is so complex that I'm not sure any poll gives a very accurate picture. Unfortunately, neither poll examined in greater detail what those polled thought about sharia and how much of it should be applied in Pakistan. Does anyone have other poll results that give what they think is a better picture?

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UPDATE (July 2) Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid has an interesting opinion piece in the Los Angeles Times saying: "The Pakistani public, army and government have suddenly awakened to the Taliban threat. That is a crucial first step. But it will need strong international support to effectively respond."

President Asif Ali Zardari has said that an agreement signed last month to allow Islamic law in the troubled Swat Valley in return for a ceasefire was made with religious clerics, and not the Taliban. The Pakistani state had not negotiated with the Taliban and other extremist elements, and nor will it ever do so, Zardari wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal.

But some people are questioning the distinction that Zardari is drawing between the “traditional local clerics” and the Swat Taliban militants who effectively control what was once an idyllic holiday destination. In the light of the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore, the first major strike on international sport since the Munich Olympic massacre of 1972, the debate over the deal has acquired a sharper edge as some see it as having emboldened the militants in the first place.

Bill Roggio, writing in the The Weekly Standard blog, says Sufi Mohammad, the cleric who negotiated the ceasefire in Swat with the government of the North West Frontier Province, has been a long-time Taliban supporter  praising them as recently  last month just days before the accord was signed.

He quotes Mohammad as saying in a recent interview that he believed the Taliban regime in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001 was “ideal.”

“From the very beginning, I have viewed democracy as a system imposed on us by the infidels. Islam does not allow democracy or elections,” Mohammad told Deutsche Presse-Agentur just days before the latest agreement was signed. “I believe the Taliban government formed a complete Islamic state, which was an ideal example for other Muslim countries.”

In 1990s, Mohammed ran an armed campaign to force the introduction of sharia in the region and in 2001 led his supporters to Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S.-led coalition forces as this Reuters story says. He was arrested upon his return and released in 2007 after he said he was giving up violence.

His son-in-law Mullah Fazlullah, the radical anti-government cleric, now runs the armed campaign in Swat where militants have unleashed a reign of terror, killing and beheading politicians, singers, soldiers and opponents. They have banned female education and destroyed nearly 200 girls’ schools.

“President Zardari’s entire premise for negotiations falls apart when you look at who the government is actually negotiating with. And the United States is supposed to be comforted in knowing Pakistan has ceded territory to a man who praises the Taliban and sent thousands of fighters to kill our troops in Afghanistan,” Roggio writes.
 
Pakistan’s Dawn said the Lahore attack was a price the state was paying for giving in to militants and takes issue with the Pakistani authorities for trying to pass it off as a local deal.

“Tuesday’s assault also highlights the folly of negotiating with those bent on destroying our way of life. The peace deal, or capitulation, in Swat has been described by officialdom as a regional solution to a regional problem. This does not wash, it cannot fly. Militancy and terrorism are national problems that are not confined to a specific region.”

 ”The obscurantists must be tackled head-on if we are to entertain any hope of redemption. If the state resorts to negotiating with militants from a position of weakness, what we will get is disaster, across the board.”

And the Taliban won’t be stopped in Swat either, warns author Ahmed Rashid in a piece for the YaleGlobal Online . He writes that from their lair in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) the Taliban have already expanded their influence into the settled areas of North West Frontier Province and virtually laid siege to the capital Peshawar

Rashid says the Swat deal has become an explosive issue within Pakistan, going in some ways to the heart of the struggle. ”Right wing, religious-minded citizens and politicians praise it for bringing peace to Swat, while liberal Pakistanis see it as an unmistakable watershed in the country’s battle against Islamic extremism, giving Al Qaeda and the Taliban a new safe haven.” 

And from where they can carry out attacks. Which makes the whole deal quite different from the local, limited arrangement that the Pakistani establishment led by Zardari is suggesting it is.

[Reuters pictures of girls in a school that reopened in Swat, a member of Pakistani Islamist delegation and a military helicopter at Lahore cricket ground]

Ten days have passed since Pakistan cut a deal with Islamists to enforce sharia in the turbulent Swat region in return for a ceasefire, and we still don't know many details about what was agreed.  The deal made international headlines. It prompted political and security concerns in NATO and Washington and warnings about possible violations of human rights and religious freedom.

(Photo: Supporters of Maulana Sufi Mohammad gather for prayers in Mingora, 21 Feb 2009/Adil Khan)

In the blogosphere, Terry Mattingly over at GetReligion has asked in two posts (here and here) why reporters there aren't supplying more details about exactly how sharia will be implemented or what the  doctrinal differences between Muslims in the region are. Like other news organisations, Reuters has been reporting extensively on the political side of this so-called peace deal but not had much on the religion details. As Reuters religion editor and a former chief correspondent in Pakistan and Afghanistan, I'm very interested in this. I blogged about the deal when it was struck and wanted to revisit the issue now to see what more we know about it.

After consulting with our Islamabad bureau, reading other news organisations' reports and scouring the web, I have the feeling -- familiar to anyone who has reported from that part of the world -- that the more you look at this deal, the less you see besides the fact of the deal itself. The devil isn't hiding in the details because there aren't many there. He's playing a bigger political game.

First, look at the deal that made all the headlines. On February 16, the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government agreed with the local Swat Islamist leader Maulana Sufi Mohammad what was essentially a sharia-for-peace swap. The short text was all of two paragraphs in the original, as reported in the Urdu daily Roznama Express (Daily Express, below). The MEMRI Blog has the Urdu original (click here) and a translation that says they agreed that:

"...all non-Shari’a laws, i.e. those which are against the Koran and the Hadith, will stand ineffectual and cancelled, in other words, terminated ...

"...Shariat-e-Muhammadi [Prophet Muhammad’s Shari’a] will be expediently implemented whose details are present in the books of Islamic jurisprudence and which is derived from four sources: Allah’s book [the Koran], Sunnat-e-Rasool [Prophet’s deeds], Ijma [Consensus], Qiyas [Reasoning].  No decision against it will be acceptable. In the event of revision, i.e. appeal, a house of justice, in other words a Shari’a court, will be created... whose decision will be final...

" ...A sharia court system "will be implemented in totality with mutual consultation following the establishment of peace in the Malakand Division."

The wording is so broad that it's open to all sorts of interpretations. It was so vague that even the Pakistani media didn't quote it much when reporting on the deal. After the overall fact of the deal itself, the news nugget here is the promise of a sharia appeals court for the area. A federal sharia appeals court already exists in Islamabad, so this seems to be more a practical local issue than a larger doctrinal one.

With that deal done, the government needs to issue a regulation establishing it in law. None has been signed so far, none has been published and journalists in Islamabad say none has been issued there. The Pashtun Post website has posted a text it describes as the proposed resolution, but it is actually a text drawn up last year when the NWFP government first considered reestablishing sharia in Swat. It's a good bet that the final wording will be quite close to this long legal text, which basically sets out the composition of the more sharia-compliant courts to be established in the region.

How does it stipulate sharia should to be applied? In the relevant paragraph, it simply says:

"A Qazi (Islamic judge) shall seek guidance from Quran Majeed (Noble Koran) and Sunna-e-Nabvi (way of the Prophet) ... for the purposes of procedure and proceedings of conduct, resolution and decision, of cases and shall decide the same in accordance with Shariah. While expounding and interpreting the Quran Majeed and Sunna e Nabvi ... the Qazi shall follow the established principles of expounding and interpreting Quran Majeed and Sunna-e-Nabvi ... and, for this purpose, shall consider the expositions and opinions of recognized Fuqaha’a (jurists) of Islam."

(Photo: Swat girls return to school after peace deal, 23 Feb 2009/Adil Khan)

In other words, we still have no specifics. And it's looking like we won't get many more even when President Asif Ali Zardari signs and issues the final text. Sharia looks secondary here to the ceasefire the deal ushered in. The final sentence of the Feb. 16 agreement summed it up:‘‘We request Maulana Sufi Mohammad bin al-Hazrat Hasan to end his peaceful protest [for implementation of Sharia] and help the government in establishing peace in all the areas of Malakand Division.’’

That sentence also contains the deal's Achilles heel. Maulana Sufi Mohammad is only one player on the Islamist scene in Swat. "Help the government in estabilishing peace" means convincing his son-in law Maulana Fazlullah, who has forged ties with other Pakistani Taliban factions and al Qaeda, to give up the fight.  His group did announce a ceasefire this week, but he might just be using that to refresh his forces for the next round of fighting. As our report noted: "Authorities have struck peace deals with militants in several parts of the northwest over recent years, including one in Swat last May, but none has succeeded in eliminating militant sanctuaries."

We're not the only ones saying that. For example, Najmuddin Shaikh, Pakistan's former foreign secretary and its former ambassador to Washington, explained in the Daily Times why the deal is getting such short shrift:

"It is a sad but almost foregone conclusion that this agreement will be no more effective than the ones concluded in the past, and that while there will be a welcome albeit temporary respite from the daily bloodletting in Swat, the strife will soon resume."

Another question is why Pakistan should agree to a local sharia regime if it already has sharia law. Well, it does and it doesn't. The constitution says no law can be repugnant to Islam and there are some specifically Islamic laws, such as the one on hudood offenses such as blasphemy, fornication, apostasy and blasphemy. But the court system is based on the secular model established during the British colonial period. Courts are overloaded with cases and some are shamelessly corrupt. So a traditional sharia court where the qazis handed down verdicts with more speed and less fuss than the civil courts can appeal to Pakistanis frustrated with the secular system, regardless of the school of Islam they follow.

The Swat deal would set deadlines of up to six months to decide cases and would also set up an appellate court for the region. But they will not be "qazi courts" run by Islamic scholars and the judges will not even need to be experts in Islamic law. The 2008 text says hiring preference would be given to "those judicial officers who have completed a Sharia course of four months duration from a recognised institution."

(Photo: Swat residents inspect a school blown up by Taliban, 19 Jan 2009/Abdul Rehman)

These details are interesting, but they hardly mean much to an outside reader. And they pale in the wider context of the major political struggle going on in the region, which is what Reuters and other main news organisations are focusing on. In his column in The News, Islamabad political analyst Ayaz Amir warned against "missing the essence of Talibanism":

"I think we are not getting it. Talibanism in Afghanistan is a revolt against the American occupation ... Pakistani Talibanism ... is a slightly different phenomenon ...  It is a revolt against the Pakistani state. Or rather a revolt against the dysfunctional nature of this state.

"If this were Nepal this would be a Maoist uprising. If this were a Latin American country it would be a peasant or a Guevarist uprising. Since it is Pakistan, the revolt assaulting the bastions of the established order comes with an Islamic colouring, Islam reduced to its most literal and unimaginative interpretations at the hands of those leading the Taliban revolt.

"...This revolt is spreading. Hitherto it was confined to the Frontier Province. But on February 7 we saw this revolt cross the River Indus for the first time when a police check post in Mianwali (Qudratabad near Wan Bachran) was attacked by Taliban fighters. On Feb 11 another police outpost near Essa Khail came under attack."

If Pakistan were considering a more sharia-compliant justice system in relatively calm areas such as Islamabad or Lahore, it would presumably hold lengthy discussions and produce detailed guidelines to be followed by law-abiding citizens. That would be interesting to drill down into. But Swat and neighbouring areas of NWFP are in the grip of an armed insurgency. The Taliban militants have unleashed a reign of terror on the region, killing and beheading politicians, singers, soldiers and opponents and destroying nearly 200 girls' schools. They're the men with guns who will ultimately decide how this vague deal is implemented. Or if it is implemented at all.

Pakistan’s military has ordered troops to hold fire in the Swat valley following the deal between the provincial government and Taliban militants to enforce Islamic law.

The truce comes after nearly two years of fighting in which the Taliban have extended their control of the alpine region barely 130 km (80 km) northwest of Islamabad, destroyed the police force, established a shadow government and implemented an austere form of Islamic law. 

So the question being asked in the aftermath of the deal is: has the Pakistan army backed off from a debilitating war? Second, and more important from the standpoint of the bigger battles ahead especially in the tribal areas, does it really have the stomach for counter-insurgency operations ?

Jauhar Ismail in a post on All Things Pakistan says in an ideal world he would have hoped that the Pakistan army gained the upper hand in Swat to allow the authorities to negotiate from a position of strength. But that didn’t turn out to be the case, partly because of bad strategy and also because of the nature of guerrilla warfare.

Ultimately, the author argues the Pakistan army was never trained to fight a counter-insurgency. All its training, indeed most of its weapons, are focussed on the threat from India, existential or otherwise. Using helicopter gunships and artillery barrages to pummel your own people into submission is almost a sure-fire way to lose the war.

The Indian army, by contrast, has had greater experience in guerrilla warfare, beginning with the dozens of insurgencies in the northeast, to the Sikh revolt in the Punjab in the 1980s and the Kashmir revolt in 1989. And if the Indian army finds itself still engaged in both Kashmir and the northeast (Punjab was a success, though) after decades of operations, you can imagine what the Pakistanis are up against in such a short time period.

On the Pakistan Defence Forum, a blog focused on the armed forces, there has been considerable debate on the issue of why the Pakistan army has been unable to regain control of Swat. One reader said the whole logic of declaring war on the area was flawed.

His comments are worth reproducing briefly :

“Why couldnt Russia control Afghanistan or America control Viet Nam? There is no military solution to this problem. The solution is political, social and economic. We cannot control that valley because we have lost the confidence of the people. when the people are against you then no army can control a territory.”

“Pakistan has invaded itself, it has made an enemy of the people of those regions and all in the name of a few dollars from the USA and a fear of getting attacked by the American Empire. It is not the fault of the army but those bastards who sent the army into a Pakistani region.”

Strong words those, and as Bill Roggio notes in The Long War Journal, with 142 soldiers and paramilitary soldiers dying since August 2008, the Swat insurgency by that count is more dangerous than the conflicts in Afghanistan or Iraq.

So where does the Pakistan army go from here? Masood Sharif Khan Khattak, a former director general of the Pakistani Intelligence Bureau, says it must be preserved and not forced to fight an endless war on its own territory.

[Photos of Islamist leaders from Swat and Pakistani troops in the area]

Pakistan has agreed to restore Islamic law in the turbulent Swat valley and neighbouring areas of the North-West Frontier Province. What does that mean? Sharia is understood and applied in such varied ways across the Muslim world that it is difficult to say exactly what it is. Will we soon see Saudi or Taliban-style hand-chopping for thieves and stonings for adulterers? Would it be open to appeal and overturn harsh verdicts, as the Federal Sharia Court in Islamabad has sometimes done? Or could it be that these details are secondary because sharia is more a political than a religious strategy here?

(Photo: Swat Islamic leaders in Peshawar to negotiate sharia accord/16 Feb 2009/Ali Imam)

As is often the case in Pakistan, this issue has two sides -- theory and practice. In theory, this looks like it should be a strict but not Taliban-style legal regime. As Zeeshan Haider in our Islamabad bureau put in in a Question&Answer list on sharia in Swat:

WHAT KIND OF ISLAMIC JUDICIAL SYSTEM IS SWAT GETTING?

Under Nizam-e-Adl or Islamic system of justice, all judicial laws contrary to Islamic teachings stand cancelled and the courts will decide the cases in line with Islamic injunctions.

These laws were largely in use before Swat was absorbed into Pakistan in 1969, and governments in the 1990s had promised to implement them to placate militants, but never fully did.

Unlike the Taliban courts, which have been summarily handing out severe punishments like chopping off hands of thieves and stoning to death adulterers and rapists, there will be a system of appeal on the decisions handed out by courts in Swat and neighbouring districts.

Ordinary judges, with a knowledge of Islam, will officiate rather than a Qazi. Analysts said the courts are unlikely to hand down Taliban-like sentences.

(UPDATE: Haider followed this up on Tuesday with an analysis "Pakistan takes risk with Islamic Law.")

According to the Karachi daily Dawn, the draft regulation to implement Islamic law, which was already under debate in the provincial capital of Peshawar, has been made more restrictive than a text drawn up last October. That regulation gave sharia courts wide powers with no recourse for appeal. This latest draft says the Federal Sharia Court in Islamabad  will be the final court of appeal. Ordinary judges, not qazis (Islamic judges), will officiate. All that makes it sound like sharia in Swat will be less harsh than the summary sharia judgments the Taliban may impose in other areas.

(Photo: Swat school bombed by Taliban, 19 Jan 2009/Abdul Rehman)

So far, so good. But that's just on the theory side. As for the practical issues, the Daily Times in Lahore focuses on the local politics behind the sharia drive. It says implementation will depend on local Islamist leaders such as Maulana Sufi Mohammad and adds:

"A chilling feeling is that the Sufi and his warlord son-in-law will preside over the establishment of the sharia law and will also interfere in the day to day implementation of it. The power of the Sufi will derive from the gun of the Taliban and he will not for long allow a sharia which is different from the one enforced by the Taliban elsewhere. This is very important because sharia is the order that will ensure longevity to the governance of the Taliban in the various territories they hold. Finally, if the Taliban win the war in Afghanistan and the Americans leave the region, it is the sharia that will ensure that the territories conquered in Pakistan stay with them."

So once again, as mentioned here in our last post about Swat, religion and politics form an unpredictable and combustible mixture with the Taliban. If previous blogosphere debates about sharia are anything to go by, we'll probably hear a lot about how sharia is imposed, how the system compares to Saudi Arabia and whether this reflects true Islam. That will be interesting, of course, but won't go far enough to understand what's happening in Swat. There will also be a heavy dose of local politics involved, much of it opaque to outsiders. But it's in this practical sphere that the real issue will lie. The Daily Times gives the context for this political struggle that points to a wider strategy in which sharia is a tool. It's worth repeating: "...if the Taliban win the war in Afghanistan and the Americans leave the region, it is the sharia that will ensure that the territories conquered in Pakistan stay with them."

Pakistan has agreed to introduce sharia law in the Swat valley and neighbouring areas of the north-west in a peace deal with Taliban militants. Religious conservatives in Swat have long fought for sharia to replace Pakistan’s secular laws, which came into force after the former princely state was absorbed into the Pakistani federation in 1969. The government apparently hopes that by signing a peace deal in Swat it can drive a wedge between conservative hardliners and Islamist militants whose influence has been spreading from the tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan into Pakistan proper.

Critics are already saying the deal will encourage Taliban militants fighting elsewhere in both Pakistan and Afghanistan and could threaten the integrity of the country itself. Britain’s Guardian newspaper quotes Khadim Hussain of the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think-tank in Islamabad, as calling the peace deal a surrender to the Taliban. It also quotes Javed Iqbal, a retired judge, as saying, ”It means that there is not one law in the country. It will disintegrate this way. If you concede to this, you will go on conceding.”

News of the peace deal followed an acknowledgement by Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari that the Taliban had “a presence in huge amounts of land” in Pakistan and were trying to take over the country. In an interview with CBS, he said Pakistan was fighting to survive.

The militants in Swat had been pushing for the enforcement of a hardline version of Islamic law. They had already banned female education, outlawed music and dancing, and carried out summary executions.

According to Pakistan’s Daily Times the peace deal envisages a more moderate interpretation of sharia, seen by many of the people in Swat as more efficient than the country’s bureaucratic secular judiciary, and also includes a commitment to reopen girls’ schools. But it questions whether this moderate interpretation will survive. 

“The people of Swat want quick justice, the kind enforced by the Wali of Swat, as if in a city-state utopia, but they are bound to get more than they have bargained for by rejecting the dilatory system obtaining in the rest of Pakistan,” it says. “They will get the “munkir” (forbidden) part of the sharia dealing with forbidden acts plus the “maruf” (approved) part dealing with acts of piety. The “praiseworthy” acts of piety such as the saying of the nimaz five times a day in the mosque will be greatly approved, but those who don’t observe the ritual will suffer physical and financial pain. And the list of the “maruf” stretches endlessly, which means that you can be thrashed for a number of things you thought were not “penal”. It is probable that the scared people of Swat simply don’t know what they are in for.”

So will this peace deal help take the steam out of the Taliban insurgency, using time-honoured tactics of divide and rule, and give the government some breathing space for bigger battles ahead? Or is it the beginning of a slide into the Talibanisation of Pakistan?

(Reuters file photos of people fleeing fighting in the Swat valley)

Afghanistan’s Taliban are appealing to the United Nations, the European Union and the Red Cross to stop President Hamid Karzai from carrying out executions of people on death row, many of them their fighters.

They don’t think the Afghan judicial system is fair, according to a statement by the hardline Islamist group. The UN and the EU have asked Karzai to halt the executions. 

Obviously, the irony is inescapable. During their years in power, the Taliban carried out summary trials followed by public executions or amputations of limbs for lesser crimes such as stealing.

I happened to visit the soccer stadium in Kabul in September where the executions were carried out and witnessed by men, women and even children. The caretaker told me there was a belief that so much blood had spilled onto the grounds and seeped into the soil that they had difficulty growing the grass again.

So has the Taliban had a change of heart? Doesn’t seem too likely, given what has been happening in recent months. This week, a group of young girls had acid sprayed on their faces on their way to school in Kandahar. Their attackers came on motorbikes, pulled off their headscarves, and sprayed  the acid using toy pistols.

Nobody claimed responsibility for the attack, but the finger was pointed at Taliban who are strongly opposed to education for girls, believing their place to be at home.