Malala Targeted By Fazlullah-Led Taliban
By Amir Mir
October 13, 2012
The cowardly attempt to silence the courageous voice of Malala Yousafzai through the barrel of the gun was made by the Swat chapter of the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shartiat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM) led by Mullah Fazlullah who had joined hands with the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan in 2007 to become the Ameer of the Swat chapter of the TTP.
According to well-informed officials in the security agencies which are investigating the cowardly attack on Malala, the attackers apparently belonged to the Fazlullah faction of the TNSM/TTP combined and wanted to silence her brave voice which had challenged Fazlullah’s extremist brand of so-called Islamic Shariah in the picturesque Swat valley by opposing the burning of the girls’ schools.
Female education in the Swat district was completely banned in 2007 when Mullah Fazlullah alias Mullah Radio used to rule the roost. Malala Yousafzai was already on the hit list of the Taliban along with her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai, being an educator as well as a member of an anti-Taliban peace jirga in Swat.
Before being shot on October 9, the 14-year old Malala had received numerous threats to her life. In a bid to identify her attackers who apparently belong to the TNSM/TTP combined, the investigators have decided to interrogate Maulana Sufi Mohammad and Muslim Khan, the founding Ameer and the chief spokesman of the now banned TNSM respectively, who had been arrested in the wake of the May 2009 Swat operation carried out by the Pakistan Army.
The driver of the van in which Malala was travelling at the time of the attack has also been taken into custody for interrogation because he escaped unhurt while all the three girls were shot. Being the only eyewitness of the deadly attack by two bearded men, the van driver will help the investigators prepare sketches of the attackers.
Investigators believe the attack on Malala was a well-planned and symbolic attempt to discourage the liberal voices in a backward region of the country where over 400 girls’ schools were either bombed or set ablaze by the fanatic followers of Fazlullah between 2007 and 2009.
Malala, who used to idealise Ms Benazir Bhutto and wanted to work for the cause of education by launching a political party, became a symbol of resistance against those opposing female education in Swat. Writing a blog for the BBC under the pseudo name even before the 2009 military operation, Malala had won international recognition for highlighting the atrocities of Fazlullah’s henchmen who burnt hundreds of girls’ schools and terrorised the valley by carrying out suicide bombings targeting the security forces.
The fearless Malala who championed the cause of girls’ education and dared to criticise the Taliban for destroying girls schools and terrorizing school going girls, courageously defied Fazlullah’s ban on female education and continued to study, till the ouster of the Taliban from the valley in 2009. Therefore, the Fazlullah-led Taliban wanted to make an example of Malala, just like Benazir Bhutto, another liberal voice, who used to criticise the radical Islamists for their extremist approach and high-handed tactics. As Malala was struggling for her life after being attacked on Tuesday, the Tehrik-e-Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack and threatened to target her again and kill her if she managed to survive this time.
While justifying the attack in a strongly-worded statement on a child on the grounds that she had preached secularism and so-called enlightened moderation, the central TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said: “It’s a clear command of Shariah that any female, that by any means plays a role in war against the Mujahideen, should be killed. He accused the media of pouring out “smelly propaganda” against the Taliban, saying that women had also been killed in Pakistan military operations and were detained by the intelligence services. Ehsanullah then told BBC Urdu that Malala was attacked because she was anti-Taliban and secular, and generated negative propaganda about Muslims. “She considers President Obama as her ideal leader. Malala Yousafzai is the symbol of the infidels and obscenity,” Ehsan said.
The responsibility claim for the spineless attack has once again proved that the fanatic Taliban militants can go to any extent against those who don’t share their ideology. At the same time, however, the broad daylight attack on a busy road of the Swat district raises serious questions about the continued existence of the Taliban henchmen in the valley, despite repeated claims by the military leadership that they had been wiped out in the 2009 military operation.
Army Chief General Ashfaq Kayani had claimed in July 2009 that the Pakistan Army had achieved its main objective in Swat by recapturing its administrative seat of Mingora which had been seized by the TNSM and TTP militants, led by Mullah Fazlullah.
However, the facts remains that Fazlullah, who is the son-in-law of the central TNSM chief Maulana Sufi Mohammad, and a hothead cleric-turned-Taliban commander, had made good his escape to Afghanistan in the aftermath of the military operation in Swat. He has regrouped his fighters after defeat in Swat and they are as dangerous as they ever were.
The fugitive Fazlullah and his followers have created some serious troubles for the Pakistan Army by carrying out deadly cross-border raids on its posts from the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nuristan, killing dozens of the Pakistani soldiers in Dir and Chitral districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Pakistani’s military and civilian leaders have repeatedly complained to the Obama administration that the US Allied Forces in Afghanistan are doing nothing to prevent the cross-border raids being carried out by Fazlullah’s fighters who control a 20-km stretch of the border with Pakistan from areas in Afghanistan’s forbidding Nuristan province.
It was a year ago that the Pakistani military spokesman had described Fazlullah as one of the most wanted Taliban commanders operating from Afghanistan. Maj Gen Athar Abbas had said in an interview with Reuters on October 17, 2011 that the Afghan and the US-led forces had failed to hunt down Fazlullah who is responsible for a spate of cross-border ambushes despite repeated requests by Pakistan. “The attacks conducted by Taliban militants loyal to Fazlullah have killed about 100 members of our security forces. We have given locations and information about these groups to the Afghanistan government and the Isaf. But no action has been taken against them”, he had stated.
In his October 20, 2011 interview with Reuters two days after the ISPR spokesman spoke, Fazlullah had vowed to return to Pakistan and to wage war in his former stronghold of Swat, saying: “We sacrificed our lives and left our homes for the sake of Islamic Shariah and will do whatever we can to get it implemented in Pakistan.”
The brazen attack on Malala by the Taliban in the heart of Swat and in the presence of the Pakistani troops has caused fresh apprehensions about the possible revival of the Taliban-led insurgency in the Swat valley which should to be addressed immediately.
‘Laberintour,’ organised by the Embassy of the Argentina Republic and Serena Hotels, at the Satrang Gallery, Serena Hotel, Khayaban-e-Suhrwardy, Islamabad, continuing up to October 14.
Source:http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-6-137239-Malala-targeted-by-Fazlullah-led-Taliban
URL: https://newageislam.com/islam-terrorism-jihad/malala-targeted-fazlullah-led-taliban/d/9001