Maulana Fazlullah
Encyclopedia
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi is a Pakistani militant group whose objective is to enforce Sharia law in the country. The rebel group took over much of Swat in 2007...
(TNSM), a banned Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i Islamic fundamentalist militant group allied to the Pakistani Taliban, that aims to enforce Sharia
Sharia
Sharia law, is the moral code and religious law of Islam. Sharia is derived from two primary sources of Islamic law: the precepts set forth in the Quran, and the example set by the Islamic prophet Muhammad in the Sunnah. Fiqh jurisprudence interprets and extends the application of sharia to...
in the country. He is sometimes referred to as "chief" of the Swat Taliban and is the son-in-law of the TNSM's founder, Sufi Muhammad
Sufi Muhammad
Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan, born in Dir, is the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi , a Pakistani militant organisation with Wahabi and Deobandi learnings vying for implementation of Sharia in Pakistan. It operates mainly in the Dir, Swat, and Malakand districts of...
.
TNSM activities
After the TNSM was banned by President Pervez Musharraf on January 12, 2002, and Sufi MuhammadSufi Muhammad
Sufi Muhammad bin Alhazrat Hassan, born in Dir, is the founder of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi , a Pakistani militant organisation with Wahabi and Deobandi learnings vying for implementation of Sharia in Pakistan. It operates mainly in the Dir, Swat, and Malakand districts of...
, the founder of the TNSM, was imprisoned, Fazlullah, his son-in-law, assumed leadership of the shattered group. Fazlullah managed to restore the organization, bootstrapping on the relief efforts by Islamist extremist groups following the October 8, 2005-earthquake
2005 Kashmir earthquake
The 2005 Kashmir earthquake was a major earthquake centered in Pakistan-administered Kashmir known as Azad Kashmir, near the city of Muzaffarabad, affecting Gilgit-Baltistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It occurred at 08:52:37 Pakistan Standard Time on 8 October 2005...
. New cadres then began moving into the Swat Valley.
In the aftermath of the 2007 siege of Lal Masjid
Siege of Lal Masjid
The siege of Lal Masjid was a confrontation in July 2007 between Islamic fundamentalist militants and the Government of Pakistan led by General Pervez Musharraf and Shaukat Aziz Administration, then Prime minister of Pakistan...
, Fazlullah's forces and Baitullah Mehsud
Baitullah Mehsud
Baitullah Mehsud was a leading militant in Waziristan, Pakistan, and the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan . He formed the TTP from an alliance of about five militant groups in December 2007. He is thought by U.S...
's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) formed an alliance. Fazlullah and his army henceforth reportedly received orders from Mehsud. A temporary cease-fire from May to September 2007 allowed Fazlullah to consolidate his political forces in Swat.
With the support of more than 4,500 armed militants, by late October 2007 Fazlullah had established a "parallel government" in 59 villages in Swat Valley by starting Islamic courts to enforce sharia law.
On 29 November 2007, Pakistani security forces captured Fazlullah's headquarters and arrested his brother. Fazlullah himself had already fled to another village. Security Forces have now retaken most of the Swat region. On January 26, 2008, it is believed Maulvi Abdul Raziq, a close aide of Fazlullah, was arrested in the Kot area of Charbagh
Charbagh, Swat
Charbagh is the name of one of the villages in Charbagh Tehsil, in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan. It is part of Swat District and is located at 34°50'0"N 72°26'30"E with an average altitude of 1032 meters ....
.
In an address to the nation on January 2, 2008, Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf
Pervez Musharraf , is a retired four-star general who served as the 13th Chief of Army Staff and tenth President of Pakistan as well as tenth Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee. Musharraf headed and led an administrative military government from October 1999 till August 2007. He ruled...
said that he believed Maulana Fazlullah and Baitullah Mehsud
Baitullah Mehsud
Baitullah Mehsud was a leading militant in Waziristan, Pakistan, and the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan . He formed the TTP from an alliance of about five militant groups in December 2007. He is thought by U.S...
were prime suspects in the assassination of Bhutto
Assassination of Benazir Bhutto
The assassination of Benazir Bhutto occurred on 27 December 2007 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Bhutto, twice Prime Minister of Pakistan and then-leader of the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, had been campaigning ahead of elections due in January 2008...
. However the Pakistan government had put the onus on Baitullah Mehsud.
Although Sufi Muhammed was freed in 2008, he did not seek to usurp Fazlullah's leadership in the TNSM. He did, however, assist in the negotiation of a cease fire between TNSM forces and the Pakistani army in February 2009. As part of the cease fire Pakistan agreed to allow Sharia law
Nizam-e-Adl Regulation 2009
The Nizam-e-Adl Regulation was a controversial act, passed on April 13, 2009, of Pakistan's central government that formally established Sharia law in the Malakand division.-Background:...
in Malakand District
Malakand District
Malakand District is a district of the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in Pakistan.The District was formed in 1970 as a Provincially Administered Tribal Area, It had previously been a Tribal Area known as the Malakand Protected Area, part of the Malakand Agency...
.
American news channel MSNBC
MSNBC
MSNBC is a cable news channel based in the United States available in the US, Germany , South Africa, the Middle East and Canada...
obtained the only known alleged picture of Maulana Fazlullah. On 10 July 2009, according the BBC, Fazlullah was near death after being critically wounded, corroborating statements made by senior government and security officials in Pakistan. This was a day after the army announced it had wounded the Taliban chief in the Swat valley. The Taliban have denied that Fazlullah was critically injured. The Pakistan army, however, refuted this claim and insisted that a man impersonated Fazlullah when he allegedly denied that he was critically injured. According to reports, Fazlullah remains stranded in Imam Dehri, without access to desperately needed medical care. He has a 5 million rupees (62,250 dollars) reward.
As of November 2009, Mullah Fazlullah has escaped from Pakistan to Afghanistan. He has warned the Pakistani army that he will continue to attack Pak forces in Swat.
In October 2011 Maj Gen Athar Abbas
Athar Abbas
Major General Athar Abbas is a two-star general and the current military spokesperson for the Pakistan Defence Forces who replaced Major General Waheed Arshad as the new Director General of Inter Services Public Relations on January 14, 2008....
complained to Reuters that Pakistan had urged Afghanistan and the US to take action against Fazlullah in response to cross-border raids in Dir, Bajaur and Mohmand from April 2011 to August 2011 but that no efforts had been made. Abbas elaborated, "Fazlullah and his group are trying to re-enter Swat through Dir."
Reported Death
Intelligence sources reported to news media that Mullah Fazlullah was killed, along with six others, in a clash with Afghan security forces near the Pakistan border in Barg Matal district of Afghanistan’s Nuristan province on 26 May 2010. No official confirmation had been made, and Faqir MohammedFaqir Mohammed
Faqir Mohammed is a member of the Mohmand tribe and a deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban umbrella group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. He was born in Chopatra, in Bajaur Agency, Pakistan. He was reported as killed on March 5, 2010 during a helicopter gunship attack on militants by the Pakistani...
had denied that the death had occurred.
Radio broadcasts
Maulana Fazlullah started an illegal local FMFM broadcasting
FM broadcasting is a broadcasting technology pioneered by Edwin Howard Armstrong which uses frequency modulation to provide high-fidelity sound over broadcast radio. The term "FM band" describes the "frequency band in which FM is used for broadcasting"...
channel in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa's Swat Valley in 2006. He preaches forcing vice and virtue and has an anti-Western Jihadi stance. He is considered pro-Taliban and a very powerful figure in the area.
Though he considers most communication based electronics as "major sources of sin" he transmits broadcasts of his sermons on an illegal local FM radio channel, hence the nickname "Radio Mullah" or "Maulana Radio".
FM signals are relayed from mobile transmitters mounted on motorcycles and trucks. During nightly broadcasts, prohibited activities are routinely declared and violators' names announced for assassination, which often includes beheading.
Introduction of Sharia courts
With Swat under Fazlullah's control he and his followers quickly moved to setup the Sharia Courts as primary judicial courts instead of when he was running them parallel to the Pakistani National Judicial Courts.Eradication of sins and the attacks on music shops
He leads a drive of eradicating vices such as musicMusic
Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
, dancing, of what he calls "major sources of sin" such as TVs, CDs, computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s and other video equipments by burning the electronics or the shops in which they are housed. Fazlullah has threatened barbers who shaved their customers' beards and warned against girls attending schools.
Anti-polio vaccination stance
He opposed a polio vaccination drive in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa claiming it was a conspiracy of the Jews and Christians to keep Muslims impotent, according to a listener. In some sermons he had also considered it against Islamic norms. He considered Hepatitis CHepatitis C
Hepatitis C is an infectious disease primarily affecting the liver, caused by the hepatitis C virus . The infection is often asymptomatic, but chronic infection can lead to scarring of the liver and ultimately to cirrhosis, which is generally apparent after many years...
as a more important health issue than Polio and questioned the West's intentions. The propaganda had hindered the drive immensely as the local people saw volunteers and workers for the World Health Organization
World Health Organization
The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that acts as a coordinating authority on international public health. Established on 7 April 1948, with headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, the agency inherited the mandate and resources of its predecessor, the Health...
vaccination program as a threat and in some cases the immunization teams were physically beaten.