Global IssuesAFPAK: People Turning Against Taliban
The Taliban once regarded as true jihadists here are rapidly losing popularity in response to their ongoing targeting of mosques, schools and innocent people. 'It is not surprising that the Taliban’s popularity graph is dwindling. They no longer enjoy the quantum of public support they had at the time of the attack on Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces,' said Jamilur Rehman, a resident of South Waziristan and a student at the University of Peshawar.
Rehman hopes that the Taliban will soon vanish because they are rapidly losing local support. Quite apart from the horror of the atrocities themselves, killing women and children has also weakened the Taliban, he says. Led by religious sentiments, thousands of people donated generously - and thousands of youths from Pakistan travelled to Afghanistan - to fight alongside the Taliban against U.S. forces in Sep. 2001. Millions of rupees were collected by religious parties in the name of supporting the Taliban.
Thousands of the youths still languish in Afghan jails, while hundreds have gone missing. The word ‘taliban’ literally means ‘student of religious school’ but the now the word is synonymous with militancy, violence and terrorism. The Taliban came to the forefront in 1994, and within a couple of years they took control of 95 percent of Afghanistan. They ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
Most of the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) population of 5 million in Pakistan welcomed the Taliban and provided them sanctuaries from where they later launched attacks against the Pakistan army.
They enjoyed unprecedented support which became evident when the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) - an alliance of pro-Taliban religious political parties - swept the election in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan. The Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal religious alliance won an absolute majority in the Oct. 2001 regional elections, after which it ruled the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan provinces for five years.
The MMA leaders were staunchly opposed to the U.S.-led anti-terrorism campaign in neighbouring Afghanistan that had ousted the Taliban from power. The group believed Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf had become a tool of U.S. foreign policy and campaigned on promises to enforce Islamic law and for a withdrawal of U.S. forces based in Pakistan.
© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service