AND ZULFIQAR ALI, NEW DELHI AND PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — After a fitful day of meetings and government threats, a group of Pakistani Taliban fighters grabbed their guns Friday, jumped into their trucks and headed back toward the Swat Valley, relieving fears that they might continue on toward Islamabad, the capital of nuclear-armed Pakistan.
But residents of the Buner district, the object of the Taliban expansionary push, remained shaken, well aware of the militants' record in neighboring Swat of burning schools, beheading policemen and beating unmarried couples seen in public.
"I can't think of going back to Buner," given the security situation, said Afsar Khan, 40, a municipal council member, who has fled to Peshawar with his family.
Many residents worried that the departure was largely a charade. They said a limited number of militants made a big show of leaving but as many quietly stayed behind. Some officials reckoned that at least 300 Taliban fighters had arrived from Swat but only a few dozen appeared to have left.
Some experts also expressed doubt that the Taliban's action was anything but a tactical retreat that would give the militants an opportunity to regroup and expand their grip at a more opportune time.
Khan said he was injured in an attack this month, when militants detonated a bomb at a jirga, or community meeting, on how to counter the Taliban influx. Five people died, he said. Taliban militants followed up by attacking and occupying his family compound.
They also took over the gas station in Buner and sold more than 15,000 gallons of fuel, making off with the proceeds, he said.
A reporter working in Buner who asked not to be identified said residents had been extremely afraid in recent days, especially women threatened with violence if they left their homes. Schools remained open and girls were attending, he said, but almost all female students wore veils.
FM radio stations were under Taliban control and were broadcasting sermons and other religious programming.
The Taliban's rapid expansion into Buner has shocked many in Pakistan and around the world because the district is just 60 miles from Islamabad.
The unabashed power grab has come as President Asif Ali Zardari allowed the militants to impose Sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley in exchange for a truce, raising fears that they were becoming unstoppable.
