Peshawar - Policeman Bashir Khan glanced indifferently when half a dozen militants with long beards and shoulder-brushing hair brandished their Kalashnikovs and grenade launchers as their pickup truck zoomed past a roadside security post in Hyatabad, an upmarket neighbourhood of Peshawar.
'How could you stop someone who is ready to die?' Khan, 35, asked a reporter, referring to dozens of suicide bombings that have killed some 1,000 security personnel over the last year.
This is the sort of self-defeating mentality that has paralyzed law-enforcers and the country's political leadership against pro-Taliban fighters forging deeper into the capital of North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) from the surrounding volatile tribal region.
'Police in rural Peshawar have long given up patrolling at night after a contingent was blown up by a rocket-propelled grenade,'' English-language Dawn newspaper reported on Wednesday.
A worried senior government official told the newspaper that the town was in a state of siege and if it fell, the rest of the NWFP districts 'would fall like ninepins.'
Last week, fighters loyal to pro-Taliban firebrand cleric Mangal Bagh from the tribal district of Khyber Agency, located some 10 kilometres west of the city, raided a house in Hyatabad and abducted six women for their alleged involvement in prostitution.
The women were released the next morning, but were severely tortured overnight. Two days later, 16 Christians were captured briefly for drinking alcohol even though there is no ban on selling, buying and consuming liquor for minorities.
'Militants have launched a campaign to provide speedy and severe justice to the people. They patrol the city, receive complaints from aggrieved, kidnap the accused, and take them to the tribal region to punish according to the self-defined Islamic laws,' said a local conflict reporter Irfan Ashraf.
The phenomenon emerged only after March, when the new government reversed what it called the 'hard-handed policies' of President Pervez Musharraf, a key US ally in the international fight against terrorism, halted ongoing military operations in tribal areas and offered talks to the militants.
Primarily, the revised strategy that set alarm bells ringing in NATO headquarters was meant to tackle militant violence by promoting political process and economic development in the NWFP and the tribal belt.
However, the plan didn't work despite good intentions by the secular and liberal Awami National Party, which runs the provincial government in NWFP.
The main reason for the failure, according to security analyst Mehmood Shah, was that the authorities never worked out details of the discussions and the use of military force, if necessary.
Instead, they kept repeating a 'peace rhetoric' which resulted in a fallout that has emboldened militants who are now consolidating their positions around Peshawar and in other districts of NWFP, Shah added.
Cleric Bagh's militia is active in the west, trying to tighten its grip over the Pakistan-Afghanistan highway, the main supply route for NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Last week his men stormed the rival Ansarul Islam group in Tirah valley of Khyber Agency, triggering a firefight that left more than 40 people dead.
Enforcing sharia in Bara, the main town in the district, the radical cleric recently notified a 'moral code' for women.
'A woman cannot leave her home alone, it is un-Islamic. She should be accompanied at least by a child and all shops will be shut during the prayer hours,' his spokesman Mistri Gul said. 'Anyone violating our laws will be fined.'
In the north-west, from Peshawar to the last town on the Afghan border in Mohmand Agency the presence of militants is very strong, while in the province's north-eastern Swat valley rebels are descending from mountains where they fled for refuge during October's security operation.
Last months' peace deal, the only one signed so far with the militants, brought no relief to the public in the scenic valley. More than a dozen girls' schools have been torched over the last couple of days and 10 people died in fresh clashes only on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in NWFP, militants are bombing music shops, movie theatres and internet cafes. Cable operators are receiving threats to abandon their trade and barbers are told not to shave beards and women are barred from receiving an education.
'Peace had its chance but the Taliban blew it. True, there was a brief lull in the violence but the storm is now raging out of control,' said Dawn newspaper in an editorial, recommending 'strong and decisive action' against the militant menace.
The gradual loss of territory to the Taliban seems to be finally jarring the Pakistani government back to reality.
While chairing a high-level meeting of senior civilian and military leaders, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on Wednesday approved use of force to clear NWFP and tribal areas, in addition to political and economic measures, an official privy to the meeting said.
The country's military chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani was given the authority 'to decide on the quantum, composition and positioning of military efforts.'
'It's a good move as peace talks can succeed only if you keep your guns pointed at militants,' Shah said.
But he warned that the use of military means should be limited otherwise it would backfire and the country might see yet another violence spiral.
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