Pakistan Region In Grip Of Fear As Leader Begins to Implement Sharia Law

April 3, 2009

Author: Saeed Shah

Source: The Guardian

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/apr/03/swat-valley-taliban-pakistan-sharia

With his flowing white beard and thick spectacles, Sufi Muhammad has an avuncular air about him that can initially appear reassuring.

But all that changes when the 70-year-old kingpin of the Swat valley opens his mouth to promise more of the kind of punishment meted out to the 17-year-old local woman captured in the mobile video footage.

Muhammad is leader of an Islamist movement that has long since agitated for sharia justice. And he took a big step towards his objective in February when he struck a "peace for sharia" deal with the authorities under which the Taliban would stop a two-year armed campaign in the region in return for the establishment of new religious courts. In a rare interview with any media outlet, domestic or foreign, he told the Guardian that the new courts would formalise penalties including flogging, chopping off hands and stoning to death.