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The caliphate-within-a-state makes itself at home, with no challenge from Islamabad. It will be interesting -- and telling -- to see if the loss of 9 U.S. troops in an Afghan border province over the weekend elicits any additional pressure on Pakistan to control its territory and borders. "Taleban set up 'Pakistan courts'," by M. Ilyas Khan for BBC News, July 15:
Taleban militants in Pakistan's north-western Mohmand tribal area have set up permanent Islamic courts, they say.
The districts have been divided into four judicial zones, each having two judges and a permanent court address.
The Taleban have up until now used mobile courts - with no permanent offices or judges - to settle criminal and financial disputes.
They say the permanent courts show the diminishing authority of the central and local governments.
The Taleban currently control large areas of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) along the border with Afghanistan.
'Dozens of judgements'
"There will be eight judges, two for each zonal court, and there will be a top judge to whom appeals can be made," Dr Asad, a spokesman for the Mohmand Taleban, told the BBC News website.
An official of the Mohmand tribal administration confirmed the report, saying the courts were already functioning a day after the Taleban's announcement.
Meanwhile, the top spokesman for the Pakistani Taleban Movement (PTM), Maulvi Omar, has told the BBC Urdu service that permanent Taleban courts were already functioning in Bajaur district, Mohmand's northern neighbour.
"About 20 local religious scholars issue dozens of judgements each day in Bajaur, where we have the most organised judicial system in place," he said.
Public killings
In addition the PTM also runs a vast network of mobile courts in the rest of the Fata areas, he said.
The cases range from land transactions and loan disputes to family matters.
All this is embarrassing for the Pakistani government, especially because the Taleban have in the past carried out cruel punishments against people accused of moral turpitude, crime or spying.
Not embarrassing enough, apparently, for them to do anything about it.
Posted by Marisol at July 15, 2008 2:01 PM
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Now Pakistan doesn't have even a VENEER of "Sovereignty" to hold-up as to why we should "Leave them" to hunt the Al-Queda/Taliban ENEMY in NW Pakistan.
If Pakistani Authority is NON-EXISTENT in these ENEMY Sancuaries, we are Obligated to not only excercise "Hot Pursuit"after them, but to make PRE-EMPTIVE strikes at them as well.
The situation is the same as when we pursued the Communist Enemy into Cambodia FINALLY,in 1970, ,from Vietnam,in addition to attacking the "Ho Chi Minh Trail"in its Cambodian and Laotian "Sanctuaries".
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at July 15, 2008 2:40 PM
Embarrassing? Another lie we're expected to believe.
Posted by: undaunted at July 15, 2008 3:00 PM
Doesn't the definition of a country include control over national territory? If Pakistan doesn't even try to control what it claims as its territory, can it claim it as part of Pakistan?
Posted by: Seymour Paine at July 15, 2008 4:06 PM
All this is embarrassing for the Pakistani government, especially because the Taleban have in the past carried out cruel punishments against people accused of moral turpitude, crime or spying.
Given that Pakistan created the Taleban, what is there for them to be embarrassed about? Isn't the group that demolished thousand-year-old works of art in Afghanistan doing exactly what its makers expect of it?
Posted by: PMK at July 15, 2008 6:23 PM
Sounds like it's getting close to drone time.
Posted by: MP at July 15, 2008 6:46 PM
Seymour, good question. They've always said this about the "tribal areas". If the Pakistan Gov't isn't interested (read scared) in trying to sort that lot out, then maybe we should do it for them. I do believe it will come to this anyway, just a nice quick strike from Afghanistan would do it. Then we could "deny" the attack, just like the Taleban likes to do.
Posted by: gymgal at July 15, 2008 7:02 PM
Since the Pak government has given up on that part of their country, the NATO foces can go in and clean it up with some well placed bombs, and at the same time get OBL.
Posted by: ZenaWarriorPrincess at July 15, 2008 9:59 PM
We must bear in mind, of course, that the Muslim definition of what constitutes 'crime, moral turpitude, and spying' is very, very broad, and includes many things that to the Western mind, or, indeed, any decent and intelligent human being, are not 'crimes' at all.
'Moral turpitude', for example.
Let us remember that even in the supposedly 'moderate' United Arab Emirates, or in supposedly 'moderate' Malaysia, a man and woman caught, as Hugh puts it, 'kissing and clipping', in public, or even in the back seat of a taxi, can be condemned to a year in prison, or worse.
Let us remember that a woman in Gaza, or in Iran, or in certain areas of Iraq, who is caught out in garb deemed insufficiently Islamic, is liable to having acid flung in her face, or a beating, or even...rape, and her throat slit, or a bullet in the back of the neck.
Let us remember that in Iraq a Muslim girl who was believed by her father to have fallen in love with a young kafir English soldier, was executed by her father; for sharia forbids Muslim women to get involved with kafir men.
Let us remember that 'spying' and 'moral turpitude' might include merely being a member of a non-Muslim faith community; that alone brings one under suspicion of being allied with the non-Muslim world and plotting to destroy the Muslim society around about.
(Muslims, of course, in doing so, are 'projecting' - folks like the Taliban automatically assume that every kafir minority *must* be plotting to overthrow and enslave the surrounding Muslim society. After all, it's what *they* would be doing were they the minority within a kafir society...it's what a lot of Muslim minorities *are* most assuredly doing, around the world).
A mosque is a military command centre: so Muslims naturally assume that a church or a Hindu temple is the kafir equivalent.
Their god is a god of war, conquest, empire and slavery; so they assume this is all that anyone else can have in mind.
As for 'crime' - let's not forget that 'shirk' - assigning partners to the divine being - is said to be the very worst crime that anyone can commit, worse than murder; so every Christian within Pakistan is viewed by pious, Quranically instructed Muslims, as the most dreadful sort of criminal.
Posted by: dumbledoresarmy at July 15, 2008 10:03 PM
MP...right on target. But it is time for MULTIPLE predator drones, not one or two, and non-stop sub-launched Tomohawks. Multiple strikes followed by more strikes, around the clock. When it gets too hellish to endure, then these folks may be willing to discuss the whereabouts of OBL, the psycho with the eyepatch Mullah Omar, and all the rest.
Posted by: No More Ham, Ed at July 15, 2008 10:04 PM
Let's try some absurdity on for size. Suppose we recognize the Taliban government of North West Pakistan as a defacto independent nation. Then we declare war on it and bomb the stuffing out of the Taliban. Then we ask the UN to return it to Pakistan as a protectorate and bug out. It costs Pakistan SOME face. But the cost is not as much as if we invade Pakistan considered as a whole functional nation.
{^_^}
Posted by: jdow at July 16, 2008 4:42 AM
MP: Drone time indeed! lol!
Posted by: Bingo at July 16, 2008 5:24 AM
A mosque is a military command centre: so Muslims naturally assume that a church or a Hindu temple is the kafir equivalentDDA
This is a remarkably insightful observation - it's brilliant of you to have pointed that out. It explains very well why a restoration of the al Aqsa to the Jews, or the Babri Masjid to the Hindus would be an affront to the Mohammedans. While the Jews & Hindus would be overjoyed at getting their holiest shrines back, Mohammedans would look at it as them regaining a command center with which to plan wars against Islam. Despite the fact that even the most anti-Islamic of Jews or Hindus more likely than not don't think of Mohammedans when they are at such places.
MP
That's an interesting timing on the comment, given reports that US troops in Afghanistan are prepared to launch attacks on al Qaeda outposts in Pakistan. Hope they follow through
Posted by: Infidel Pride at July 16, 2008 2:25 PM
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