The Swat Shop

In the news...A bomb blast in Peshawar, Pakistan, kills at least 18, a bomb blast in Lahore destroys an anti-Taliban school.

Over the last months, Pakistan has been making the unwelcome headlines. Military action, civilian refugees and an increasing number of Islamist suicide bombings have taken the country to the top of the most dangerous places to be, according to The Economist . Number one is still Baghdad. Afghanistan is third. Given America’s involvement in the region, the battle for democracy is threatening to leave no demos to practice it.

On June 10th, another explosion in Peshawar, close to the border with Afghanistan, is said to leave at least 18 dead and another 60 injured. More bodies are being found under the rubble. The Pakistani Taliban, led by Baitullah Mehsud, have not yet claimed responsibility. But it’s just a matter of time. The war-game is on.

It is as early as February this year that the Pakistani government has called off a four-months long operation in the North-Western Frontier Province (NWFP) against the local Taliban led by Mullah Fazallulah. April 13th saw a signing of a cease-fire that would allow for the introduction of sharia law in the region of Malakand. $10 billion of U.S. counterinsurgency aid since 2001, you could argue, were not spent the way America had hoped. Especially considering the fact that the Taliban did not lay down arms, but quickly followed with the take-over of the Buner region, just 60 miles away from Islamabad. We all saw Mrs. Clinton’s face.

This last attack proved to be the last drop in Pakistan’s seven-year struggle against the Taliban in the NWFP. Following a number of terrorist attacks, including the one in Mumbai last November, and with America and the rest of the world watching more closely than ever, President Asif Zardari had to do more than just pretend everything was under control. On April 28th, the Pakistani army moved into Swat. The plan was to clear the Buner district of militants within a week.

Six weeks into the offensive, Pakistan seems more fragile than ever before. UN humanitarian agencies are estimating around 2.4 million displaced civilians. The number of civilian deaths is unknown. But the pictures of children dying in the arms of their parents after U.S. air force raids have been diligently taken off air. Hearts and minds, hearts and minds...

Bombs are landing everywhere. Hospitals are running out of means to help. The UN is asking for $600,000; so far, less than half that has been promised. According to The Economist, a recent survey by an American NGO revealed that 69% of Pakistanis thought of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as a threat, and 45% backed the army’s fight against then in the NWFP. With the number of victims of terrorist attacks throughout the country reaching 2,300 last year, the government is going to have to work a bit harder to maintain this support.

Having fallen off President Bush’s anti-terrorist bandwagon, much like America itself, Russia seems all but too eager to brush all the reminders of Islamic extremism under the carpet. No one likes to think about Chechnya, anymore. Or Pakistan, for that matter. These are not Russia’s worries, anymore. Only occasional bomb-blasts make the Russian news; no one is trying to understand the workings of someone else’s fight against extremism. Which is a shame, really. If the current unrest in the Caucasus is anything to go by, then Russia’s fictitious office-made peace in the region will prove far more headlines-prone than it would like us all to think.