.

They have announced their arrival with a bang. The police checkpost in Mianwali, a border town near restive NWFP, is a grim reminder that Pakistani society is facing the worst scenario of civil unrest that it has seen for decades. The two story building was reduced to rubble when the militants destroyed it with powerful explosives. They attacked the post around 3 am, killed the constables on guard and then killed 6 police personnel inside before blowing up the building. Militants have come to Punjab with an attitude. So how is it different this time around? I mean, suicide attacks have taken place before in Lahore and Rawalpindi. Yes indeed Punjab has been struck with tragedy of suicide bombings on various occasions but this attack on post signals the fact that militants will now increase their sphere of influence outside the frontier province and tribal belt. Swat is already under Taliban's control, Peshawar is closed from 3 sides, Dir - hitherto untouched- is falling to their con...

With 180 girls' schools torched since 2008 in Pakistan's Swat Valley and some 900 indefinitely closed, the future for education for some 125,000 young women is under dire threat by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). The latest bombings took place Monday in the district capital, Mingora, "once considered the safest place in Swat," according to The Guardian . Five girls' schools were leveled by TTP militants who last week decreed a permanent ban on education for girls. In recent weeks, residents who have crossed the TTP have been strung-up from trees, beaten, or had their shops destroyed while markets have been ruled " no go " areas for women. First mobilized during the 1980s by the CIA and Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence agency (ISI) as "plausibly deniable" assets to wage "holy war" against Afghanistan's socialist government, organized crime and drug-linked jihadi groups now threaten Pakistan itself. Call it "blo...