Taliban throw Pakistan authorities from Swat Sharia zone

Taliban fighters have taken control of a district in Pakistan, patrolling streets and markets, officials and witnesses said this morning. Hundreds of armed fighters have set up checkpoints and occupied mosques in Buner district northwest of the capital, Islamabad, sparking global concern and posing what Washington has called a “mortal threat" to the security of the world. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the situation in Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to world security. She also called Pakistan's judicial system corrupt, adding that it has only limited power in the countryside.

Earlier this month, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari signed a law implementing Islamic law – or Sharia – in the Swat Valley region as part of a deal to end a two-year Taliban insurgency there. Now what was once one of Pakistan's most popular holiday destinations, the Swat Valley is now mostly under Taliban control. Thousands of people have fled and Taliban-led fighters have destroyed hundreds of schools. This morning Swat’s local government said it was sending out troops to try and seize back control of government buildings.

The turmoil in Buner, a district of about one million people, does not pose an immediate threat to Islamabad, which lies across a mountain range. But the speed and aggression of Taliban advance has stoked a sense of alarm across the country. "If Taliban continue to move at this pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad," Maulana Fazlur Rehman, leader of the pro-Taliban Jamiat Ulema e Islam party, told the national assembly yesterday. In Mingora, the commercial hub of Swat, the police are keeping a low profile, reduced to directing traffic. Most politicians have fled, many under death threats. Many residents said it was not clear who was in control of the town. In Imam Dheri, the Taliban headquarters near Mingora, a Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, told the Guardian newspaper their goal Islamic religious rule first in Pakistan and then across the Muslim world. "Democracy is a system for European countries. It is not for Muslims," he said. "This is not just about justice. It should be in education, health, economics. Everything should be under Sharia."

Defending the government, Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, said Islamabad was pushing for a negotiated peace just as the US had done with Iraqi militants. "To think that that strategy somehow represents an abdication of our responsibility towards our people and towards the security of our country and the region is incorrect," he told CNN news channel.

By Hayley Jarvis for SOS Children