Pakistani Village Fights Taliban Grip On It's Youth

Via Washington Post

ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN -- When a suicide bomber drove his truck into a village volleyball game and a crowd of spectators in northwestern Pakistan a little more than two weeks ago, the explosion killed young men from nearly every family in the small, closely knit tribal community.

One of them was the bomber[...]

Last week, a dozen elders from Shah Hassan Khel described a scene of carnage and panic after the bomb exploded, leaving a huge crater in the playing field and scattering bodies too charred to identify. Each of the men named at least one cousin, nephew or brother who died while playing in or watching the match. They also knew the young suicide attacker, a villager who had run off with the Taliban.

"Every family in our village has lost a relative, but no one is weeping," said Mushtaq Ahmed, a gaunt farmer with a black goatee who heads the village peace committee, a euphemism for the anti-Taliban militias. "The bomb destroyed our village, but it has not taken away our courage. Once our 40 days of mourning are finished, we will fight and keep fighting as long as a single man is left in the village."

Good on them! I wish them success.