At one -time a peaceful tourist heaven, the Swat Valley in central Pakistan has descended from a rich, peaceful and progressive area into a ghost valley. The Taliban have taken over. Pakistan's Zardari government have signed a deal that gives effective control to the Taliban. This follows a decade of troubles where a rag tag army of 2,500 Taliban fighters lead by cleric Maulvi Fazalullah, popularly known as the Radio Mullah for his sermons given through his at one-time illegal FM radio station, have taken over.

The last two years have been particularly brutal with over 1,200 civilians killed and many people wounded, an unknown number of government soldiers killed and some 300,000 people displaced from their homes. Those who can afford to move have left for Peshawar, the regional capital and the richest have moved to Islamabad to escape the turmoil.

The area once a princely state, annexed by Pakistan in 1969, was once prosperous and its people well educated. Its airport, and attractions like an upmarket ski resort used to attract western tourists. Today the resort is a burnt out ruins. Most of the police force has disappeared or resigned. This leaves the province at the mercy of the Taliban and the system of Sharia law. Although the court system was riddled with corruption, it was once well established in Pakistan. It has now largely disappeared to be replaced by religious courts run by clerics trained in Sharia law. "We will run the area in accordance with the Holy Book" announced a spokesperson for Fazalullah.

The people most affected are the women and children. Over 200 schools that once educated female children have been attacked and many have been levelled. Male education has been "revised" to move it away from the western style education to one based upon teachings of the clerics.

The markets have been "cleaned" of offensive western style goods, such items as CDs, DVD's and cosmetics. The only cinema in Mingora has been forced to close and many people have lost their livelihood. TV is banned as it is "unIslamic".

Women are now forced to stay at home and 100,000 Swati girls have had an opportunity to have their education drastically reduced. Once the valley was the most literate in Pakistan. Women have largely disappeared from the streets and those that do venture out must wear full purdah which is hot and uncomfortable.

It has been reported that bodies of decapitated people have been hung in public places to set an example to those who chose to ignore their rules. Fear rules the streets.

The soldiers of the government's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) have largely left the area under an agreement struck early in 2009. The fighting has stopped but not the killings. The area has a multitude of ethnic Pushtuns not all of whom agree with the Taliban. It remains to be seen how the various tribal factions will co-exist. The government is playing a watching game and trying to balance it's critics and the requests for "human rights" intervention by the USA. Huge USA subsidies in Pakistan are at stake.

Critics are concerned that the agreement to have Sharia law will spread to other parts of Pakistan. The area of Malakand seems under treat. Just where all this will lead is anyone's guess.

I was in Swat in late 2007. By this time the Taliban were starting to exert control. This was the only area in Pakistan that I felt distinctly unwelcomed, a definite contrast to other areas of northern Pakistan. You'll find details of this visit in my travel narrative book Following Marco Polo's Silk Road published by Amazon in February 2009.

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