The appointment of Mullah Fazlullah as TTP chief will see an escalation in violence in Pakistan

On November 7, 2013, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) gathered, probably in the Kunar province of Afghanistan, and declared Mullah Fazlullah the next TTP chief, after the death by drone of the earlier chief, Hakimullah Mehsud. He was confirmed in office by the Afghan Taliban chief, Mullah Umar, who is considered "amirul momineen" (caliph) by the TTP rank and file. This took no time, because Fazlullah is the chosen one of al-Qaeda, which was not too pleased by initiatives among some of the TTP factions to engage in peace talks with Islamabad.

Fazlullah was small-time till Lal Masjid  an al-Qaeda watering hole where the Pakistani "deep state" communicated with terrorism  happened in Islamabad in 2007. His father-in-law, Sufi Muhammad, had led a movement of pure sharia for many years and participated in the post-Soviet-withdrawal Afghan war with 8,000 warriors, all taken captive by northern warlords and sold, tortured and slaughtered in the tradition of wars in Afghanistan. Fazlullah, a dacoit battening on a colossal timber theft in Swat, had forced a weak provincial government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to allow his father-in-law's sharia in Swat in 2008.

The Lal Masjid revolt in 2007 by pro-al-Qaeda clerics was suppressed by the Musharraf government, which led to al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri practically declaring war on Pakistan by his act of founding the TTP. Fazlullah unleashed a reign of terror in Swat, slaughtering, beheading and group-hanging innocent Swati, who thought he would enforce Islamic punishments. Most Muslims are obsessed with "quick justice" but actually want to dispense with "due process" in modern adjudication. The video of the whipping of a girl in public by a Taliban commander brought things to a head in 2009.

The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, who succeeded Musharraf, heeded parliament and attacked Swat, making Fazlullah run away with his cohorts, which included Uzbek marauders sent in by al-Qaeda. Fazlullah broke his legs during his flight to the Kunar province in Afghanistan, but was soon well enough to attack and make the Pakistan military's control in Swat look fragile. He nearly killed schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai last year, booby-trapped and killed a general this year, and has sworn to kill Kayani after becoming the TTP chief. Kayani, retiring this month, has no stomach left for a fight with the TTP and

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