Most Pakistanis support their government's campaign against the Taliban -- for now, writes Graham Usher in Islamabad The Pakistan government has approved a full- blown military operation to "eliminate" the Taliban from Swat Valley in Northwest Pakistan. Attacks have killed 700 militants it says, as the army launches jets, helicopters and artillery to pound Taliban positions in the mountains and valleys around Mingora, Swat's main town. A ground offensive of 15,000 troops against 5,000 Taliban guerrillas will likely follow. "We've prepared for house-to-house fighting," said army spokesman, General Athar Abbas, on 11 May. As the army moves in, civilians move out. In the last week the UN estimates 360,000 people have fled the fighting, swelling an existing refugee population of 550,000, displaced by earlier army-Taliban wars on Pakistan's borderlands with Afghanistan. There are fears those homeless may top one million, making the flight "the largest man-made humanitarian disaster in Pakistan's post-independence history," says the Muslim Aid charity. In a single day tens of thousands left Mingora, leaving the leafy riverside city a desert of abandoned homes and mined streets. Residents exploited a respite in the curfew to join a caravan of cars, buses, motorbikes, rickshaws and donkey carts to flee the war. "Everybody wants to get out of this hell," said one man, driving his children and cattle before him. War and flight are the end of a peace agreement signed between the government and clerics representing the Taliban in February, the cornerstone of a government-army strategy aimed at reversing a Taliban advance that now controls or partially takes hold of large parts of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier with Afghanistan. The Taliban said the government reneged on a pledge to implement Islamic law throughout Swat. The government charges the Taliban used the peace to entrench their armed rule in the Valley and expand to Dir and Bruner, neighbouring districts less than a 100km from Islamabad. The Swat campaign was "a battle for the survival of Pakistan", said Prime Minister Youssef Raza Gilani, on 9 May. The army has vowed to achieve "a decisive ascendancy" over the militants. And Washington has welcomed the offensive. In fact, it almost certainly had a hand in prompting it. While peace in Swat fell apart, President Asif Ali Zardari was in Washington, alongside the equally unpopular Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai. Both men were in town to hear the roles ascribed to them in a Barack Obama strategy that places their countries at the heart of American foreign policy. Publicly, Zardari came out well. His "democratic" government was endorsed at every point, banishing fears that Washington may again be toying with the idea of a military coup as remedy for a potential failed state in Pakistan. Substantial increases in civilian and military aid were pledged. But in a one-to-one meeting with Obama the riot act was read: America saw the Swat deal as an "abdication" that not only threatened Afghanistan but allowed Al-Qaeda to consolidate their bases inside Pakistan, endangering Americans at home and abroad. According to American media, there were even hints that drone attacks now pummeling the border areas may be directed inland to hit Mingora. American thinktanks dusted off "contingency plans" of what America would do should Pakistan and its nuclear arsenal fall to the Taliban. Zardari got the message: within 24 hours of his meeting with Obama the operation against the Taliban in Swat was approved. But will it prove any more effective than previous army campaigns that, so far, have garnered only greater tracts of Pakistan territory coming under Taliban control? There are differences. For one, the government has the support of most of the opposition parties, including the very popular Muslim League of former prime minister Nawaz Sharif. Most independent Pakistan media are also on board. Two things probably account for levering this change in national opinion that, before, had defined army actions against the Taliban as "America's war for America's dollars". One was a widely distributed video that showed the Taliban publicly flogging a 16-year-old girl in Swat, exposing the savagery of its rule. The other was a statement by Sufi Mohamed, the chief cleric negotiator in Swat, that defined Pakistan's constitution, democracy and party system as "infidel". But public opinion is fickle. Two things could turn it against "Pakistan's war", say observers. One is government failure to defeat the Taliban, at least in Swat. Although most believe the army has the firepower to oust the militants from the cities and villages, military success will count for nothing if it is not followed up by a government strategy of civilian reconstruction, protection and jobs. Without this, "the Taliban may soon be back, inflicting further pain on the people," says Afzal Khan Lala, one of the few Swat politicians who refused to flee during the Taliban's reign. The other is how Pakistan deals with the humanitarian crisis. So far the government response has been shameful. Even though relief should have been planned weeks in advance, most refugees have had to stay with relatives or sleep in fields rather than in camps that are cramped, poorly provisioned and pitched on exposed plains in soaring temperatures. For Karim Dad, a refugee who walked 100km from his house in Bruner to a camp in Swabi, near Peshawar, the lack of facilities reflects the callousness with which the government and army have gone about the war. He supports action against the Taliban but was nearly killed by a tank shell after the army told him it was safe to leave his village. He speaks for many: "If the army fights the Taliban with intelligence, then the people will support them. But if 60 or 70 are killed, and only 10 are Taliban, then we won't support them."
