He's not your typical-looking militant, nothing like the tall, ascetic Osama bin Laden or the choleric Ayman al-Zawahiri. He says nothing to a visiting reporter about destroying the evil West or raining vengeance down on the infidels. Sufi Muhammad, by most measures, is what any Canadian might affectionately call grandpa"”in the right setting. But here in Mingora, the main city of Pakistan's Swat valley, 150 km northwest of the capital Islamabad, the moniker doesn't quite fit. Given the fact that he is surrounded by black-turbaned militants, the soft-spoken octogenarian inspires a different kind of respect than the one normally bestowed on elders, a respect based on fear.
In Swat, a mountainous former tourist mecca wracked by nearly two years of conflict and now overrun by Taliban militants, Muhammad seems an unlikely peace-broker. The head of Pakistan's most feared militant outfit, the Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), and a one-time jihadi who now claims to have renounced violence, Muhammad is positioning himself to be the new face of the Pakistani Taliban. This is the man whom Pakistani government officials view as a member of the "moderate."
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