Creeping Talibanization

last updated 8 January 2015

Peshawar, Pakistan

Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province is preparing to adopt strict Islamic sharia law. The province, which neighbors Afghanistan and took in many Taliban refugees, is run by religious hard-liners with strong tribal and ideological ties to the Taliban. They have drafted new legislation, expected to pass easily, that will assert the primacy of sharia over civil law and create a religious police. President Pervez Musharraf does not approve but can do nothing about it, as the federal government has little authority over provincial legislatures.