Malala Yousufzai, the 14-year old girl from Swat is still struggling for her life in the hospital bed because the forces she had been fighting against with her harmless weapon have targeted her with their lethal weapons to silence her voice forever.The time is ticking for her. One of her friends, Kainaat, who also got injured in the terrorist attack, is meanwhile back home, while the third friend Shazia, is also fighting survival at a Peshawar hospital.The gory incident has triggered a massive wave of anger and sympathy across Pakistan and elsewhere in the world. The whole nation is praying for the recovery of the three girls, and the doctors are doing everything possible within their resources to save this precious life. The forces of evil ´ the Tehreeke Taliban Pakistan ´ in their own way continue to abhor women and symbols of a functional state, hurling threats at all and sundry ´ a fact borne by three deadly terror incidents between Friday and Saturday that left at least 37 people dead in northwestern Pakistan.

A countrywide protest against this heinous crime, claimed and committed by the Taliban, has been going on since the day of the incident and among the protestors you can even find those as well who never felt any shame in supporting or ignoring such crimes of the Taliban.For the first time, even the former chief of Jamat-e-Islami, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, condemned the Taliban by adding in his statement a conditional clause ‘if they are involved in it’.Raising doubt and using conspiracy theories are the two very effective propaganda tools to hide such crimes when all evidences point in one direction – Taliban.Taliban have proudly admitted their involvement in this crime and have reiterated their resolve to carry out such operations against all those boys and girls who would follow Malala.Is Malala a first victim of the Taliban outrageous action? There is a history of events where all those voices that were raised against them were silenced through the militant operations of the Taliban. Most people in Mingora, Malala home-town, sound anguished by what they consider as over-emphasis on Ms Malala. In various interviews (with CRSS) in the town late Saturday, locals, who reeled under the Taliban rule in 2007-2009 and also were displaced for several months because of the military operation against the TTP militants, questioned the singular focus on the brave Malal.

They insist that girls, women at large, Peace Jirgas and Amn Lashkhars have always been the target of the Taliban because they tried to resist the spread of the Talibanization in their areas.Malalaalso belongs to a father ´ Ziauddin Yousafzai – who has been a vocal member of Swat Peace Jirga.The only lesson we get from thepast history of the Taliban is that they follow only one rule that says; ‘Nobody except the Taliban has the right to disagree, if you disagree they have every right to kill you.’Here is a list of some events where Taliban carried out this rule without any feeling of shame and remorse:

• The chief of the pro-government Ferozkhel Amn Lashkar and recipient of the presidential award, Malik Waris Khan, was shot dead by a militant in the Jalaka Mela Ferozkhel located north of Kalaya, the headquarters of the Orakzai Agency, on Friday.[i]
• From Khunjerab on the Chinese border right down to Karachi, violent events keep taking place in Pakistan. On February 28, there was a massacre of passengers travelling from Rawalpindi to Gilgit. The buses carrying the men and women were forced to stop in Kohistan district by armed terrorists who, after checking the travellers– identity cards for their names, shot 18 passengers belonging to the Shia community, and left eight people wounded.[ii]
• A member of the pro-government Zakhakhel Qaumi Lashkar was killed and two others sustained injuries when a bomb ripped through their car in Shankhel area in Landikotal tehsil of Khyber Agency on Friday, official sources said.[iii]
• A pro-government tribal elder and member of local peace lashkar in which four volunteers and a khasadar had been killed.[iv] .

• Taliban militants attacked on Friday the house of a pro-government tribal elder in Mohmand Agency, who they had been threatening with death for some time.
• Three people, including an anti-Taliban tribal elder, were killed when militants attacked a house in Mohmand Agency on Friday.[v]
• A senior commander of the Pakistan Army has said that private militias ´ paradoxically called Amn Lashkars ´ have played a commendable role in maintaining peace and normalcy in some parts of the restive tribal regions.[vi]
• The outlawed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan has claimed that 27 young men of Bajaur Agency who had accidentally crossed over into Afghanistan were in its custody. The TTP spokesman claimed the Taliban had evidence that the parents of the kidnapped men and some of their relatives had raised Lashkars to fight the militants in Bajaur.[vii]
• The leaders of anti-Taliban Adezai Qaumi Lashkar have alleged that provincial government.[viii]
• The military is planning to enlist pro-government tribal elders in a fresh campaign it has devised to flush out al Qaeda members and its affiliates from North Waziristan, officials said on Sunday.[ix]
• Eleven mutilated and bullet-riddled bodies of local tribesmen were found as security forces continued search operations on the third consecutive day in different areas of Sepah area in Bara Tehsil, sources said on Thursday.[x]

These are incidents of Taliban naked brutality in recent months, wherein they have turned their guns on the peacemakers and peace symbols in their pitched battle against people who disagree with their version of Islam. But the trend also underlines that might Taliban are feeling that they and their ideology are nearing every inch to defeat with the passage of every day. Therefore their brutality has become limitless and merciless, similar to every brutal campaign in history, built and fought on false premises and forged notions. Thus, although the violence is getting utterly inhuman and nauseating, there hopeful signs as well, since more and more people are joining the struggle to end the menace of terrorism.

By: Nafees Mohammad,
CRSS Senior Research Fellow