Battle Buner
After the fall of Swat to the spawn of Satan, the Swat Taliban are now moving to occupy neighbouring Buner. Not only is this development worrying it is also a blatant violation of the so-called ‘peace deal’ and a challenge to the writ of the disappearing state.
However I am hopeful that the Taliban have bit off more than they can chew in Buner given that the brave people of Buner have decided to resist. A jirga attended by elders from all over the Buner District on Sunday reaffirmed that they would defend their land and vowed to pull out the Taliban from their area.
Taliban militants entered Buner and occupied several hujras in different villages and were joined by local supporters of different religious groups. An emergency jirga was convened which unanimously decided to resist Taliban with announcements made through loudspeakers that resulted in thousands of armed people from all over Buner coming out and rushing towards the Gokand Valley in Buner to face the Taliban.
The Buner jirga even sent a team of Sufi Mohammed’s TNSM to convince the Taliban to retreat, otherwise the Buner people would attack them. At the same time the local administration has deployed heavy contingents of police force and cordoned off certain hujras where the militants are camping. The jirga warned the militants of stern action if they did not leave. The standoff continues to this day.
Let us not forget that the Taliban have been repulsed by the people of Buner twice before since November 2007. The Taliban will not be third time lucky. Battle Buner is critical for Pakistan, it is a battle we must win so that the long war against the vile Taliban can be won.
