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round 10,000 residents of Botan locality in Tirah valley of Khyber tribal district staged a protest rally to condemn the decades-long militant presence in their homeland. They marched towards a Taliban stronghold deep inside Tirah where just days earlier, five civilians had been killed and dozens injured during a protest.
Its scale alone was not what made this demonstration extraordinary. The villagers held copies of the Holy Quran above their heads, pleading with the militants to leave their land “for the sake of this sacred book.” In that moment, the protest transformed from an act of defiance into a movement of conscience.
This uprising was years in the making. Civilian casualties in the region had surged as clashes between militants and security forces intensified. Whole villages have turned into battlegrounds; homes, mosques, schools and markets destroyed. The pain of recurrent displacements, the grief of losing loved ones and the trauma of war have become constant companions for Tirah’s residents.
Their message was clear and non-violent: “We want our land back; we want our lives back.” Women held pictures of their martyred sons and husbands. Elders, some with tears in their eyes, recited Quranic verses, reminding militants of the moral contradiction in their actions.
“Our women are begging on the streets of Peshawar due to displacement. We are not fighters.” This deeply human civilian plea gained momentum as similar demonstrations erupted across Kurram, Orakzai, North and South Waziristan, Bannu, Bajaur and Tank besides other parts of the former FATA. The entire tribal belt appeared to be speaking with one voice, demanding peace through community action rather than more fighting.
Amid this call for peace, tribal elder Malik Zahir Shah Afridi made public extortion slips allegedly issued by the Noor Wali group of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. He said locals were being asked for money and threatened with death in case of non-compliance. Holding the piece of paper in front of cameras, Malik Zahir warned that any Tirah resident found supporting or financing militants would be fined Rs 5 million by the local jirga. It was a bold stance and marked a turning point. The people were not only pleading for peace; they were also taking community-level steps to cut off a lifeline for the militants.
Holding the piece of paper in front of cameras, Malik Zahir warned that any resident found supporting or financing militants would be fined Rs 5 million by the local jirga. It was a bold stance that marked a turning point. The people were now not only pleading for peace but also taking community-level steps to cut off a lifeline for the militants.
Bajaur emerged as another flashpoint. In Mamund tehsil, a 50-member jirga met with the Taliban to broker peace. Their key demand that the Taliban vacate populated areas or relocate to Afghanistan was rejected.
“This is our homeland,” the Taliban representatives said. Instead, they offered a conditional ceasefire: “Don’t target us and we won’t target you.” The talks collapsed. Civil society voices like activist Swab Noor’s saw this as a grave failure. “The collapse of talks means the massacre of Pashtuns will continue,” he said.
Meanwhile, the government relaunched military operations in the region. Operation Sarbakaf, the 22nd in the sequence, was launched in Bajaur amid fierce criticism. Senator Mushtaq Ahmed condemned the operation outright. “Why did the 21 previous operations fail?” he asked at a press conference. He criticised the federal government for launching another offensive without consulting elected representatives, elders and other local stakeholders. The operation resulted, on the very first day, in some civilian casualties, fuelling public outrage.
Adding institutional weight to this disillusionment, Chief Minister Ali Amin Gandapur echoed distrust in military-led solutions. Addressing a jirga in Peshawar, he blamed the lack of peace in the merged districts for the absence of developmental projects. He agreed that operations undertaken without taking people into confidence were doomed to fail.
“Without public trust, no war can be won,” he said. He said the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and his government would no longer accept decisions taken without prior consultation.
The writer is afreelance journalist and a social activist