Pakistan Finally Wakes Up

The government had "discouraged" the village militias from dealing with the Taliban. That changed recently. The Taliban then provided the incentive. Villagers fight Taliban after Pakistan mosque blast

It is still early days, but if the people are pissed off enough - and they are armed - and the government continues to point them in the right direction (some support in the form of ammo supplies might be good), this can only be very bad for the Taliban. Locals will know where they hide, who they are, if they are then really interested, the Taliban will be gone soon enough.

There is plenty of suspicion of the government, but the Taliban itself may have turned the tide in favor of the government.

Taliban militants have also launched a string of bomb attacks in response to the military offensive and are suspected of being behind a suicide bomb attack on a mosque in the Upper Dir region, near Swat, that killed about 40 people on Friday.

After the blast, enraged villagers formed a militia, known as a lashkar, of about 500 men to expel the militants from the area, said the top government official in the region.

"They are standing up against the militants themselves as they consider them troublemakers," the government administrator, Atif-ur-Rehman, told Reuters by telephone.

Keep your fingers crossed. [Saw a summary of this story on one of the Sunday morning/talking heads news shows.]