Taliban had surged in Afghanistan in late 90s, when all the warlords and religious groups, engaged in 10 years old Jihad, failed to unify themselves and were unable to form a stable coalition govt to rebuild the war-torn Afghanistan after USSR army departure. Even their differences had reached to a level that they failed to abide by their promises which they have signed by sitting in Holy Kabah.

In today’s Pakistan, all evils are directed towards religious forces symbolized by Taliban, right from killing innocents through suicide attacks - even in mosques- till flogging, every insane action is considered to be Taliban crime. The height of this hatred is that every long bearded man who wears Shalwar-Qamees (a traditional or national dress of Pakistani men), Peshawari sandal and uses turban is termed as Taliban even the Pakhtoons arriving to Karachi from other parts of Pakistan are labelled as Taliban by a local political party.

There we need to know as who is behind all such actions; really Taliban is our only enemy or are there other factors playing their role in our tribal areas to damage Pakistan as much as they can?

The presence of ‘true radical’ Taliban is evident in Swat and Malakand division – and their demand is to setup Shariah courts, a speedy trial system for public, addition to Islamic norms in the city, has been made public. To achieve their target, they could have made many mistakes – probably burning girls’ schools, barring female education & so on – like every warring faction once getting transformed into a proper force to run a system of govt.

Since the “Swat Peace Agreement” things are getting under control and life is returning back to normal. Some elements feel threatened with this peace, hence few journalists have been killed quickly to drain the ink of peace accord including Geo TV reporter.

There were reports, as mentioned by Lt General Amjad Shoaib in ‘Live with Talat Show’ yesterday (6^th April 2009), when Pakistani security agencies raided few warring factions hide outs in FATA, have found liquor and other pornographic material. Even though such news didn’t get attention, however indicate that beside Islamic elements there could be other non-Islamic elements too.

In Southern Punjab, religious hatred exists even before the formation of Taliban force. Numbers of lives have been lost in that ethnic warfare between Sunni & Shia radical elements. Suicide attacks on mosques have directed to such elements settling their ethnic disputes and continuing their old warfare with new techniques or by aiding with tribal forces.

The emergence of Taliban was a fact to counter the growing influence of Northern Alliance which is having a clear drift towards India. As Al-Qaida, if it exists the way it is symbolised by US and its allies, provided an opportunity to instate Northern Alliance in the form of Karzai govt and throw out Taliban. To continue to strengthen Northern Alliance secular agenda, Indian factor is also visible through gorilla warfare tactics in tribal belt or some time they extend reach in other parts of Pakistan, to help promote terrorism and hence destabilising the writ of govt.

There are secular forces, afraid of Islamic rising, hence they avail every single opportunity to counter Islam or its system of govt or mode of punishment. In Pakistani society, these forces don’t have that much courage to target Holy Quran or Holy Prophet (peace be upon him) openly after having looked at Salman Rushdie who became the symbol of hatred and animosity. Hence they attack indirectly by calling Islamic system as a symbol of stone-age like Fauzia Wahab, PPP information secretary, while talking about girl’s flogging has said, “We don’t want to take society to stone-age!”

Having above elements in action it is clear that behind the thick curtain of Taliban symbol there are many players active for their own motives, not necessarily favouring Pakistan’s agenda only!

It’s the time for Pakistani society, to differentiate between the good, bad, or acceptable-for-now for Pakistan only. Among all the enemies such as Northern Alliance, Indian elements, radical money-hungry tribal lords, ruthless leaders who ignite ethnicity or Taliban - which one could be moulded in favour of Pakistan, as it is the need of time, with little cleansing!