Islamabad has been lauded for the recent gains in its counterinsurgency campaign against local Taliban insurgents called Rah-i-Rast or “Straight Path.” Despite this glimmer of hope for stability, counterinsurgency operations in Swat will likely need to continue for some time. Once the military campaign finally does come to an end, Pakistan will face an even greater challenge in rebuilding its once pristine Swat Valley.
Prior to last month, the loose network of warlords that invoked the Taliban franchise expanded into enormous swaths of the state’s Pashtun tribal areas. Some previous estimates placed the local Taliban in 11 percent of Pakistan, nearly all of that being in the North-West Frontier Province and Federally Administered Tribal Areas that are currently the center of military operations for the United States and Pakistan.
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