STORY OF A PAKISTANI REPORTER WHO ESCAPED TALIBAN DEATH SENTENCE.

SOURCE-CNN
Zarghon Shah is a man who knows just how lucky he is to be aliveHe came face-to-face with the feared Taliban fighters of Pakistan's Swat Valley, was ordered to be executed and gained a chilling insight into the mind of a fearsome militant who has waged a campaign of terror.

"I saw two Taliban standing there then I realized the danger, that we were in a wrong place," Zarghon said.

It was May this year when the TV reporter and his crew, reporting on the Taliban's uprising, strayed too far.

Zarghon, his cameraman and driver were captured in Buner, taken to an empty room and put on trial by a Taliban commander.

"He said you are telling lies; you are spies. It is because of you hell has been unleashed on us ... and it is you, the media, who is responsible for this war. I'm not going to spare you, I will slit your throat."
Then with a death sentence on his head, Zarghon and his crew were left alone for five hours -- an agonizing wait.

"We were just counting our moments to death." Zarghon told me.

And he knew it would be a most gruesome, horrible death
He pictured his body, beheaded and hanging from Swat Valley's notorious "slaughter square" -- the town center of Mingora city, where the Taliban would display the bodies of their victims.

Zarghon said he just paced the floor unable to even look at his colleagues.

He wondered who would be first to be killed and he thought of the most precious thing in his life -- his daughter Noor.

It is now that Zarghon broke down in tears, remembering how he thought he would never see her again.

Zarghon's fate rested in the hands of a man known for his campaign of terror, Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah. Fazlullah had captured the Swat Valley and moved his fighters into territory ever closer to Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

Zarghon was handed a walkie-talkie. On the other end the very man who held Zarghon's life in his hand -- Fazlullah.

Zarghon's cameraman filmed the conversation all the while under the watch of a heavily armed Taliban fighter.
Fazlullah's voice was clearly heard: agitated and with a message of defiance to Pakistan's army.

"Our women and children have been displaced." He said. "There has been bloodshed. It is an insult to our nation. If they want to fight us then come to our mountains and see our strength and power."

The footage shows Zarghon clearly under pressure, gulping heavily, but with the presence of mind to question the Taliban leader. "What will end the fighting?" he asked.

Fazlullah demanded nothing less than the implementation of strict shariah or Islamic law. If not, the Taliban would fight to the death, he said.

"If the army has the ability to fight us: come to the mountains. The Taliban is in the mountains, we are committed to our cause. Nobody can defeat us," he said.

Yet the hardline Fazlullah did something that still puzzles Zarghon. He freed the TV crew, effectively commuting the execution order -- but there was a catch.

The Taliban instructed them to film destruction they say was caused by the Pakistan army.

On the footage you can hear gunfire and mortar rounds. Taliban fighters are clearly visible. Zarghon reports to camera, taking shelter behind a building.

The footage was meant to be propaganda for the Taliban. Not long after it was shot, Pakistan's army launched an offensive driving the Taliban from their stronghold.

Fazlullah escaped. Despite rumors he was wounded he continues to command his troops from the mountains.
For Zarghon, doing the Taliban's bidding was the price of freedom. It saved his life and gave him back to his wife, son and daughter.

"The most beautiful gift of my life was this, when I returned home and I saw my family, my wife and children again," he said before retreating into a silence and remembering the moment when he faced death and survived
VIDEO

Anti-Taliban militia raised in Swat to fight Taliban

The militancy-hit people of the Kalagai area of Swat have raised a private militia and eliminated three suspected militants.

The militia was raised after the people of Kalagai, situated some 30kms northwest of here, decided to use force to counter the threat posed by the Taliban.

The leaders of the militia have called upon the government and the security forces to provide them with arms and ammunition so that they may ward off the threat effectively.

A group of journalists, who were taken to the area in Kabal tehsil on Thursday by the security forces, attended a jirga of the militia.

Members of the militia told journalists that they had seized six militants and handed them over to security personnel. The journalists were also shown three bodies, apparently that of militants.

Militiamen claimed that an encounter had taken place early on in the morning in which three militants had died.The militia, having between 250 and 300 volunteers, is headed by Syed Bacha, an elder of Kalagai.

Syed Bacha said the Taliban had misguided the people of Swat in the name of Islam. Initially the people believed, he said, that the Taliban were serious in propagating Islam. That’s why many people supported the militants.However, later on when they realised that the Taliban had made their lives miserable, the people turned against them, he said.

Syed Bacha was of the view that the militants committed atrocities against the people of Swat and also humiliated them. Ultimately the residents were compelled to raise a volunteer force against the militants.He expressed the hope that members of his militia would not have to face the kind of situation faced by Pir Samiullah, who had raised a voice against the Taliban and was killed.

Pir Samiullah was killed in December in a clash with militants, after which his body was dug out from his grave and desecrated.Some of Samiullah’s followers had claimed then that they waited for help from security personnel which never arrived.‘We need arms and ammunition from the government. Once we receive these, we will fight with the militants alongside the security forces,’ said Syed Bacha.

AFP adds: ‘This is the first Lashkar that people have formed in Swat on a self-help basis,’ said Major Suleman Akbar, army commander in Kabal, vowing full cooperation with the militia.

‘We will provide them arms, ammunition, rations and other logistic support,’ he said. ‘Taliban know only the language of guns. We will speak to them in their language now,’ 19-year-old Salman Ahmed, a member of the militia, said.

Commanders say more than 1,800 militants and 166 security personnel have died in the military operation but there is no independent confirmation of the death tolls, and skirmishes in and around Swat have continued