MARY FITZGERALD in Sultanwas

The Pakistani army claims to have the Taliban on the run, but as life gradually returns to the villages and towns that were the scene of heavy fighting a few weeks ago, the battle for hearts and minds is far from over

WHEN THE TALIBAN streamed into Sultanwas in the first week of April, Ali’s home already lay empty. His family, one of the wealthiest in the area, had fled the day before as rumours grew that the black-turbaned militants would soon completely encircle the village. After overwhelming the local populace, hundreds of armed Taliban spent their days roaming the streets of Sultanwas and their nights in houses they had occupied. One was Ali’s family residence. Dozens of Taliban took over the imposing three-storey edifice and installed themselves in its finely appointed rooms. They stayed for more than 20 days, he says, during which they looted the entire building, ripping out everything from marble fittings to electrical sockets.

The presence of so many militants meant Sultanwas went on to bear much of the brunt of an ongoing Pakistani army offensive to wrest back control of Buner, a district of Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province, which came to international attention in early April when the country’s home-grown Taliban overran its picturesque towns and hamlets. The battle for Sultanwas was considered one of the most important in what Pakistani officials have branded Operation Rah-e-Rast (Righteous Path), but what unfolded in this village in the days after the army decided to move on the Taliban remains unclear. The army claims that around 80 of what Pakistani officials rather quaintly refer to as “miscreants” died after it used F-16 fighter jets, military helicopters, tanks and artillery to pound houses, mosques and shops. But some residents, shocked that only a handful of homes in a village of some 10,000 inhabitants remain intact, say most of the militants had already taken cover in the nearby mountains.

Today, Ali, a 23-year-old medical student, sports a Kalashnikov and camouflage vest over his pristine white shalwar kameez, the traditional long shirt and trousers ensemble worn in Pakistan. “I don’t like to use this,” he says, gesturing at the rifle slung over his shoulders, “My training is to save life, not take it, but I have no choice.”

Ali and his male relatives have returned to Sultanwas to guard the ruins of what they once called home. Picking his way through the rubble, Ali points out the TV sets that were shattered by the Taliban before being flung out on the lawn, and the graffiti the Taliban scrawled on walls. “You must accept the Taliban,” proclaims one, followed by a death threat directed at the leader of a local lashkar (militia) who dared stand up to them.

Military officials say that Sultanwas, a village grown prosperous thanks to nearby marble mines, became one of the Taliban’s major strongholds after they advanced on Buner from the neighbouring district of Swat, bringing the bearded militants and their harsh interpretation of sharia law within 100km of Islamabad. The alarm this caused within Pakistan’s establishment and in Washington prompted the army offensive.

THE JOURNEY TO Sultanwas is punctuated with reminders of what has transpired in Buner over the past three months. The region’s steep and twisting roads are dotted with the burnt-out shells of cars and trucks. Beyond the historic Ambela mountain pass, where army tanks were ambushed by several suicide bombers in the early days of the offensive, a petrol station lies gutted. There are sandbagged checkpoints along the way, and barely visible lookout posts on mountain ridges.

Life may be returning gradually to the villages and towns that lay deserted just weeks ago as the army pushed back the Taliban, but there is still a palpable air of uncertainty despite the government’s confident assertions that they have the Taliban on the run. What peace exists feels fragile, and there is a mood of anxious expectation coupled with a sense that this fight is far from over.

Officials say that more than 1,800 militants in the area in and around Swat and Buner have been killed, a number that, reportedly, represents about a quarter of Pakistan’s indigenous Taliban. They also claim that the militants’ leader, Mullah Fazlullah, has been seriously injured. But many in Pakistan question how successful the operation has been so far.

“These guys are nowhere near defeated,” argues Hamid Gul, a former head of Pakistan’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) at his home in the garrison town of Rawalpindi. Gul is widely considered to be sympathetic to the Taliban. “Nobody has surrendered so far, and none of the main leaders have been killed or captured. Skirmishes are happening every day. This means the conflict is still very much alive.”

In Swat this week, the decapitated body of a police officer was discovered on the outskirts of its main city. And in Shangla, a district which borders both Swat and Buner, dozens of Taliban stormed the house of a pro- government militia leader before shooting him dead.

Buner is still not completely cleared, and the fighters that remain in pockets to the northeast have proved resilient. In Sultanwas, villagers such as Mohatabar Khan believe that many Taliban have merely withdrawn into the shadows and are biding their time for a return.Even some local officials admit that this is a possibility. “Many of those who were not diehard militants shaved their beards and melted into the general population,” says one.

“We are keeping an eye out for these Taliban, and hoping people will help us by pinpointing them.”

In the past, however, locals have been too terrified of reprisals to inform, and there are few, if any, signs that this has changed. “People are still afraid of the Taliban,” admits the official. “It will take time.”

Mohatabar Khan says he and his brother raised a lashkar of more than 100 men against the militants as they began to spill over the border from Swat in April. In recent days the brothers have revived the militia to guard against any re-emergence of the Taliban. They have made their headquarters in the crumbling remains of what was once Mohatabar’s luxurious home, its staircases and floors lined with the white marble that was the family business. The Taliban also used the house as a base after they had taken Sultanwas, and like Ali’s, it was later bombed by the army.

“If we don’t protect ourselves, who will do it for us?” Mohatabar asks as he points out the cool basement where the militants slept and the stairway from where they made radio broadcasts. “This is the only way.”

Dozens of men mill around with guns slung across their chests. Others make their way up the hill towards the house carrying RPG launchers on their shoulders. Asked how close he thinks the Taliban are, Mohatabar nods towards the mountains that rise above Sultanwas. “They are up there. We are sure of it,” he says.

Later I am told that there has been a movement of Taliban fighters that day close to the nearby town of Pir Baba, home to a 400-year-old shrine devoted to a revered Sufi saint of the same name. When the Taliban first encroached on Buner they shut down the shrine, accusing pilgrims of idolatry.

Even if the army were to succeed in routing the indigenous Taliban who have sprung from Swat in recent years, it would represent only a fraction of the government’s battle against militancy in the North-West Frontier Province and other corners of Pakistan. Analysts say that this fight won’t be won or lost militarily in the hills and valleys of the likes of Swat and Buner, but in the hearts and minds of ordinary Pakistanis. Of those, the more than two million whose lives have been turned upside down as a result of the army offensive deserve particular attention, says Aftab Sherpao, who issued frequent warnings about Pakistan’s drift into extremism when he served as interior minister until late 2007. Sherpao, who has twice survived targeted suicide-bomb attacks, is from the North-West Frontier Province, and he was critical of the deal the government struck with Taliban figures in Swat last year. He also had reservations about the all-out military assault of recent months.

“Had they started with a pro-active intelligence operation and picked up people through that, it would have been a better way,” he says. “Yes, it would taken a little longer, but it would have saved a lot of lives and property. We wouldn’t be seeing the sufferings of the internally displaced persons as we are now, a situation that could become very dangerous if it is not addressed properly.”

WHILE IT IS true that many of those who fled their homes – in what the UN described as the most dramatic displacement since the 1994 genocide in Rwanda – are now tentatively venturing back, often they are returning to rubble and destroyed livelihoods.

The government has pledged to help rebuild houses damaged by the fighting, but no formal plan has been announced. The cost of rebuilding the region’s infrastructure, including more than 300 schools destroyed by the Taliban as well as homes flattened during the offensive, is estimated to run to billions. Some of those Sultanwas residents whose homes were destroyed laugh bitterly when I ask them about promises of compensation. “No one is helping us, and I don’t think that is likely to change,” says Ali.

The longer people have to wait for some semblance of normality to return, the greater the risk that the Taliban and other groupings could exploit the situation and turn it to their advantage. With doubts increasing as to how successful the operation in Swat and Buner has actually been – US special envoy Richard Holbrooke joined the growing band of sceptics this week – few are willing to bet on the endgame. Aftab Sherpao, for one, suspects the Taliban will stage a comeback.

“They will definitely re-emerge,” he says. “This will keep on smouldering. I don’t see an end to it any time soon.”

This article appears in the print edition of the Irish Times