KARACHI // With a machine-gun in the back seat, his foot on the accelerator and wearing Top Gun style sunglasses, Azfar Mahesar pushes deeper into the heart of one of Karachi's "Talibanised" areas.
“This used to be a war zone, but we have liberated it,” said the slightly chubby policeman with pride as his vehicle races through the Pakistani city of 20 million, where Afghan intelligence says former Taliban leader Mullah Omar made his home in 2013.
Over the past few years, one word has been on everyone’s lips here: Talibanisation.
If the remote mountains that straddle the Pakistan and Afghanistan border have been the militant group’s playground, Karachi, Pakistan’s economic hub on the Arabian Sea, has been the insurgents’ hideout and cash-cow.
The Taliban dug deep into areas populated by ethnic Pashtuns, creating virtual “no-go zones” and terrorising the local population with extortion and kidnappings for ransom to provide funding for their mujahideen.
But, say Pakistani officials, that has all changed now.
“Talibanisation in Karachi has died down,” said Mahesar, a former soldier turned senior police officer in the most dangerous, western part of the city.
“I can say very confidently 70 to 80 per cent [are purged]. There are a few remnants in Karachi but they are not as capable of coming back with the efficiency that they had a year or so ago,” he said.
Today, policemen wearing flak jackets are advancing deep into the bowels of one of the remaining no-go zones, through dug-up streets and up rocky hills that mark the city’s western edge.
“This was a local Taliban HQ,” one said as he stood before a pulverised hovel.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistani Taliban) has been this country’s public enemy number one since its formation in 2007.
Last December, the group carried out its deadliest attack ever, on a school in northwestern Peshawar, killing more than 150 people, mainly children.
The TTP said it was revenge for a military operation being carried out in North Waziristan, the epicentre of their militant movement and a sanctuary for Al Qaeda fighters along the Afghan border.
In response, the government gave the police and paramilitaries permission to lay siege to Talibanised areas, killing hundreds of suspected insurgents.
“Peshawar opened the world’s eyes. We had to act,” said one policeman on the mission.
All this occurred as the military made gains in North Waziristan, from where the Taliban of Karachi received orders.
“The disconnection between Karachi and Miranshah [capital of North Waziristan] has helped law enforcers to keep the Pashtun parts of the city safe and clear of the militancy,” said Zia Ur Rehman, a security expert in Karachi.
Taliban fighters instead sought refuge in neighbouring Afghanistan, and Pakistan is now facing its lowest levels of terrorist violence in almost a decade.
In the Manghophir district of Karachi, residents say businesses are now picking up. Extortion and racketeering by the Taliban – or criminals posing as them – is now almost a thing of the past.
“God be thanked that the Taliban have gone. People were scared, they wouldn’t go out to the markets,” said elderly Fatima, dressed in a large and multicoloured shawl. For Rauf Khan, a member of the secular Pashtun ANP party, who last April survived the latest of several attempts on his life by the Taliban, there is no doubt things have changed drastically.
“Now we are mentally liberated. It somehow hasn’t felt this way in 15 to 20 years,” he said.
“Yesterday, I went to the cinema and came home late. I haven’t done that in years.”
* Agence France-Presse
