Another Paksitan district falls to Talliban

Bill Roggio:

The Taliban continue to take territory in the Northwest Frontier Province. After fighting the Pakistani military to a standstill in North Waziristan and forcibly taking over much of Swat, the Taliban have marched eastward into the settled district of Shangla.

Over 500 Taliban fighters under the command of Maulana Muhammad Alam poured into Shangla and took control of the district office and police station in Alpuri "without facing any resistance from the government," the Daily Times reported. "All government functionaries, including the DPO [District Police Officer] and DCO [District Coordination Officer], left the area the moment they heard of the fall of Shangla Top police station, located at the border between Swat and Shangla." The district courts are also under Taliban control, Dawn reported.

Maulana Alam, an ally of Swat's firebrand cleric Maulana Fazlullah, claimed the Taliban only sought to impose sharia law in Shangla. "We only struggle for the enforcement of Shariah," Alam was reported to have said.

Shangla is home to Amir Muqam, the federal Minister for Political Affairs. Muqam was the target of a suicide bomber at his residence in Peshawar on November 9. Four were killed during the assassination attempt in the provincial capital.

The fall of Shangla comes as the Pakistani army took control of security operations in neighboring Swat, where Fazlullah has essentially taken control of the district. Martial law was imposed after hundreds of police and paramilitary soldiers surrendered weapons and themselves to Fazlullah's Taliban.

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Musharraf is having a much easier time rounding up lawyers and politicians than he is dealing with real terrorist who are taking over chunks of Pakistan. If he does not turn his attention to the terrorist soon he will not have much of a country to control.