PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — When Islamist parties seized political control of one of Pakistan's most devoutly religious regions five years ago, people like Maryam Bibi immediately sensed the danger.
Her fears were well founded. Bibi, a soft-spoken 58-year-old whose nongovernmental organization helps found and run girls schools in the North-West Frontier Province and adjacent tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan, swiftly found herself a target because the mullahs don't want girls to be educated.
Her group's offices were bombed. Her fieldworkers were kidnapped at gunpoint. Her schools were attacked. Her life was threatened so many times that she lost count.
On Monday, in a continuation of such violence, four staffers of an organization that helps mothers and children in impoverished northern Pakistan were killed by suspected militants.
But Bibi found some hope in last week's parliamentary elections. Voters across Pakistan turned against the Islamists. Here, they tossed out the governing religious alliance and handed control to a secular party.
Analysts, however, said it would be a big mistake to interpret the election results as a sign that Pakistanis are ready to support an intensified military campaign sought by the U.S. against pro-Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked groups.
More than at any time since before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States, militant organizations have sunk deep roots into Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal areas. In recent months, they have pushed outward into so-called settled areas under the control of Pakistan's central government, some of them only a few miles from Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province.
'America's war'
To many Pakistanis, the armed confrontation with Islamic radicals remains "America's war," one whose cost in blood has been borne by Pakistani troops with little perceived benefit to this country.
Pakistan's role in President Bush's "war on terrorism" was a significant factor in a separate outpouring of voter fury last week against President Pervez Musharraf, who is seen as far too willing to do the military bidding of the United States.
"Not wanting the Islamists to be in charge of governmental affairs is not the same thing as supporting a U.S.-backed war against the militants, not at all," said Khalid Aziz, a former provincial chief secretary who is now a Peshawar-based analyst.
