News Archives:

• Swat is burning!
  Farewell beautiful mountains, gurgling streams, roaring rivers, fragrant orchards, place of beauty, peace and serenity.
• Retrogression in Swat
  Everything seemed fine with the 5337 square kilometers area of Swat valley and its 1.694701million people despite upheavals in the rest of the Pashto speaking areas of the North West Frontier province of Pakistan, till the early nineties. Culturally, the people of Swat valley had been more accommodative, more generous and more open to the process of change.
• Inside Fazlullah's headquarters
  Maulana Fazlullah was receiving his followers and speaking to them in Pashto in the under-construction Omar bin Khitab Mosque near the banks of river Swat when we reached his village Mamdheray. Young and old men had come from all over Swat in buses, pick-up
• Men on mission
  Maulana Fazlullah, whose real name is Fazal Hayat, is the public face of the radical pro-Taliban movement in Swat. He is widely known and his reputation as a maverick cleric with unconventional views has now travelled all over Pakistan and even beyond
• Without sustenance
  Replete with natural beauty, the valley of Swat has always been hailed as one of the country's prime tourist resorts that was also home to the traditionally hospitable natives. Its culturally rich history, exclusive handicrafts and delicacies have intrigued
• A Call from the Pulpit
  Like all the rural areas of Pakistan, District Swat which is famous not only in Pakistan but all over the globe for its scenic beauty, has been ignored regarding development and provision of modern infrastructure by the provincial or central government. However, the never yielding inhabitants of this beautiful terrain have carried on in life through their unending struggle and hard work
• Militants behead law-enforcement men in public
  Militants on Friday publicly executed four law-enforcement personnel in a village, 16km west of Mingora, the district headquarters, and exchanged heavy gunfire with security forces in a nearby sub-district
• Operation in NWFP
  Reports that the government is planning a phased operation against militants in NWFP is a welcome and encouraging development. Considering that the situation in the troubled province is getting from bad to worse, with the influence of Talibanization spreading well
• The tragedy of Swat
  ONCE the hotspot of Pakistan's tourism, Swat is fast emerging as a stronghold of the Talibanisation that has swept most of the southern districts of the NWFP and some northern districts as well. The war in Waziristan has been the focus of national attention, and rightly so given the implications of the rise of militancy in the tribal areas for the territorial integrity of the country
• Threat of radicalisation
  THE setting up of a 'law and order' force is the latest from Maulana Fazlullah, the self-proclaimed, virtual ruler of Swat. The country-mullah has been emboldened to take this step because the government has been looking the other way all this time when he was busy
• 'Islamising' Swat?
  IF there were any administrators of girls' schools in Swat that were refusing to give into militants' demands of forcing students to don the veil, the bombing of two schools on Saturday night is bound to change their minds. The more the matter is ignored by the government,
• Girls Higher Secondery school destroyed in Swat
  Three bombs went off in a Girls higher secondary school at Kabal last night, no one accepted the responsibility. The blast damaged the two storey building situated in the neighbourhood of Thesil and Kabal Police Station. More than one thousand students are reading in the school
• Swat a Paradise lost
  Valley Swat, inhabited mostly by the Yusufzai tribe of Afghan and situated to the north of Pakistan, has witnessed numerous epochs for the last several thousand years. Since the Aryans, who migrated to the valley in 14 th century B.C, Alexander’s invasion in 327 BC,