Pakistani Village Stands Up To The Taliban

The article here at the Washington Times depicts a village just outside of Peshawar in Pakistan that, after seeing one of their schools destroyed by the Taliban, has decided to defend themselves with their own public security force. Here's some of the details:

Pakistan Suicide attacks and bombings have driven some neighborhoods to take up arms in the city best known as the gateway to terrorist hide-outs in Pakistan's tribal areas.

When the Taliban blew up one of the government's girls schools, a member of Peshawar's provincial assembly called a meeting of more than 200 elders.
"The school bombing made us realize how close to home the Taliban had come," said Daud Sadiq Khan, 26, who picks up its rifle to go on patrol each night. "That's when we realized that we had to fight back."

"We began patrolling the area at night," said Khushdil Khan, a deputy speaker in the regional parliament. "Every evening from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., almost a hundred men from our area can be seen on the streets."

Look familiar? I have blogged here before about the establishment of "lashkars" being formed in Pakistan to stand up to the Taliban and that it is somewhat similar to the "awakenings" that were formed in Iraq in response to the cowardly and vicious attacks on civilians by al Qaeda in Iraq. However, the response by the Taliban has been much more swift in regards to these civilian uprisings - different from al Qaeda in Iraq who allowed the awakenings to form and become established before they went after the awakening leadership. The Taliban have over the past few months been pretty quick to conduct operations to squelch these civilian militias and it will be worth seeing if this village doesn't face the same fate.

Enraged Pakistanis strike back against Taliban

PESHAWAR, Pakistan Suicide attacks and bombings have driven some neighborhoods to take up arms in the city best known as the gateway to terrorist hide-outs in Pakistan's tribal areas.
Budabar is one example of a Peshawar neighborhood with its own squad of "Guardian Angels." But unlike the U.S. vigilante group known for its red berets and armed only with martial-arts skills, the Pakistanis make their rounds with Kalashnikov rifles.
When the Taliban blew up one of the government's girls schools, a member of Peshawar's provincial assembly called a meeting of more than 200 elders.
"The school bombing made us realize how close to home the Taliban had come," said Daud Sadiq Khan, 26, who picks up its rifle to go on patrol each night. "That's when we realized that we had to fight back."
Operating from hide-outs in the rugged tribal areas on the outskirts of Peshawar, the Taliban and al Qaeda have unleashed a nightmare of bombings, beheadings and girls-school burnings throughout Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.
But the Aug. 25 attack in the neighborhood of about 1,000 families marked the first time terrorists had targeted a school inside Peshawar itself.

Pakistani bystanders surveys at the wreckage of a room in a demolished girls-school building in the Peshawar area in August.
Explosives were planted in the school building, which housed almost 1,200 students and was the only girls school in the area. All 26 rooms, along with office records and 16 computers, were destroyed when the explosives were detonated.
"We began patrolling the area at night," said Khushdil Khan, a deputy speaker in the regional parliament. "Every evening from 8 p.m. to 1 a.m., almost a hundred men from our area can be seen on the streets."
Such citizen efforts have become a matter of routine in neighborhoods in and near Peshawar.
Peshawar-based journalist Shafiq Khan said the Taliban have come closer than ever before. "They have become strong in almost all areas surrounding Peshawar, such as Orakzai agency, Mohmand agency and Khyber agency," he said, referring to three of Pakistan's seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).