Taliban exploit class rifts to gain ground in Pakistan

In Swat,accounts from those who have fled now make clear that the Taliban seized control by pushing out about 48 landlords who held the most power.

To do so,the militants organised peasants into armed gangs that became their shock troops,the residents,Government officials and analysts said.

The approach allowed the Taliban to offer economic spoils to people frustrated with lax and corrupt Government even as the militants imposed a strict form of Islam through terror and intimidation.

“This was a bloody revolution in Swat,” said a senior Pakistani official who oversees Swat. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it sweeps the established order of Pakistan.”

The Taliban’s ability to exploit class divisions adds a new dimension to the insurgency and is raising alarm about the risks to Pakistan,which remains largely feudal.

Analysts warn that the strategy executed in Swat is easily transferable to Punjab,saying that the province,where militant groups are already showing strength,is ripe for the same social upheavals that have convulsed Swat and the tribal areas.

The insurgents struck at any competing point of power: landlords and elected leaders — who were usually the same people — and an underpaid and unmotivated police force,said Khadim Hussain,a linguistics and communications professor at Bahria University in Islamabad,the capital.

At the same time,the Taliban exploited the resentments of the landless tenants,particularly the fact that they had many unresolved cases against their bosses in a slow-moving and corrupt justice system,Hussain and residents who fled the area said.