 How successful was the Malakand Operation? There are many questions that need to be answered.Both the government of Pakistan as well as the Obama administration have been vexing eloquent about the success achieved in the recent Malakand operation. Admiral Mike Mullen has called the operation a ‘model'. Holbrooke has been all praise for bringing back home the 2.1 million displaced people. The President of Pakistan as well as the Pakistan Army Chief have claimed to have broken the backbone of the militants.
However, in applauding the operation, the horrors of the human suffering have been swept under the carpet. Violent clashes between the Taliban and the security personnel continue while the area continues to be under curfew, with some relaxation from time to time.
Cultivation of land within 300 meters on both sides of the roads has been prohibited. Caches of weapons are still being recovered and militants are being captured from their hideouts. The destruction caused to the Malakand war zone is estimated to have cost 80 billion rupees. The NWFP Information Minister has said that as a result of military operations, the province has sustained a total loss of 2.5 billion dollars and that 2.5 billion rupees are immediately required to undertake reconstruction work. About 1.8 million displaced persons are still homeless while it is reported that the bulk of the population living in the war zone is asked from time to time to leave their homes only on a few hours' notice. One woman who had given birth to twins, one of whom had died, picked up the dead child in her hurry, leaving the living infant behind. Another woman picked up her baggage thinking it was her baby.
Most displaced persons stayed with relatives and friends, while only a small number were given shelter in camps but without necessary care and attention. During one trip, when Holbrooke asked a camp inmate about his welfare, he replied that "he had come down from heaven to hell". The IDPs have often come out on the streets to protest their sorry conditions. On their way back home, they are subjected to ruthless body searches at as many as 36 points.
The security situation has not improved in the area and the World Food Programme had to be suspended and schools and government offices closed in Mingora. Whatever is known about the Malakand Operation is through the Inter Services Public Relations ISPR, (an administrative organization within the military of Pakistan that coordinates with Pakistan's public press) and not through other independent sources. The ISPR confines itself to giving out casualty numbers of security personnel and militants and there is no information about civilian casualties.
The Human Right Commission of Pakistan has stated it has come across credible evidence about extra-judicial killings and of reprisal attacks by the security forces during the military operation. There was, for instance, the death of militant leader Misbahullah, who was reported to have been apprehended by the security forces and later his dead body was found in Baclier Bazar. Security officials insist he was killed in an accident while witnesses say he was arrested by police in Mardan.
Another militant leader Izzat, a Taliban spokesman, who was arrested from Amendara, was killed by the security forces while in their custody. The authorities later claimed that he was killed by militants who were trying to rescue him. They attacked the vehicle carrying him but the vehicle shown to journalists did not have an engine.
The most harrowing reports were of strewn dead bodies with a note from the military that anyone supporting the Taliban would meet a similar fate. This explodes the myth that the operation in Malakand was strongly supported by the people. The ISPR has condemned the presence of mass graves and has demanded a transparent inquiry by a parliamentary committee representing different parties. No such parliamentary committee has since been constituted.
 There are unmistakable indications that the Malakand military operation was launched at the behest of the United States. After the Nizam e Adl agreement was signed between the NWFP government and Maulana Sufi Muhammad with the consent of the Taliban leadership, Hillary Clinton and Holbrooke expressed their strong reservations against the deal. Hillary termed it a surrender to Talibans while Holbrooke expressed his own reservations and those of President Obama's. As soon as the agreement was revoked and the military operation was launched, the U.S. lost no time in pledging its support, stressing that the army should not withdraw or sign a peace deal with the Taliban. Ever since the end of the Malakand operation, the Chairman, U.S. Joints Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen and Richard Holbrook have been paying glowing tributes to the Pakistani military for conducting a successful operation.
General Orakzai, the former governor of the NWFP has stated that during his tenure he had no problems reaching three agreements with the Taliban but he lamented it was the government of Pakistan that backed out of the agreements under pressure from the U.S.. The Nizam e Adal deal was made between Maulana Sufi Muhammad and, with the concurrence of the Taliban leadership and the provincial government, was subject to approval by the President. This should have left no doubt about the Talibans' readiness to submit to the writ of both the provincial and the federal governments. It also testifies to their allegiance to the constitution of the country.
Pakistani media reported in March 2009 that local Taliban leaders have asked the new government to end relations with the U.S. and enforce Sharia in the tribal areas. This was announced at a meeting attended by thousands of tribesmen shouting anti-American slogans. They further assured that the Taliban were patriotic people and that they had waged Jihad against America. They warned that the country would suffer from being an ally of America in the ongoing war on terror. They expressed their willingness to have a dialogue with the government and urged upon it to remove all the new check posts.
According to the local media, in July 2009 the peace deal with Baitullah Masood was still intact but the new government suddenly changed its posture. The reports said there was not a single incident of suicide bombing since the deal and the level of violence had mostly gone down. It added that "the Taliban were not retaliating even to the offensives by the security personnel". It pointed to the howl of protest from the Bush administration that recklessly sent in its drones and later slammed missiles into the tribal territories killing innocent people.
As to the allegation that the Taliban wanted to superimpose their version of Sharia on the people of Pakistan, no less a person than Maulana Mufti Munibur Rehman has revealed that Muslim Khan, the spokesman of the Taliban, rang him up, requesting him to come out with what he considers to be the right version of Sharia and the Taliban would abide by it.
A correspondent of a local newspaper in an interview with Geo TV, stated that during the military operation he made his way to Swat and through the local Taliban contacted Maulana Fazlullah on telephone who told him that if the Taliban's version of Sharia was not acceptable to the people of Pakistan, let a correct version of Sharia be debated and arrived at in a conference of the Ulema belonging to all schools of Islamic jurisprudence or a correct version of Sharia be determined by the Jama al Azhar and the Taliban would readily embrace that version of the Sharia.
However, it is reported that the U.S. military commanders have been holding out a threat to the Pakistan army that unless they take more aggressive action against the militants, the U.S. will act on its own. This is how Pakistan is being pushed further into a cauldron of violence and bloodshed against its own people. 
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