Newly appointed head of the Taliban in Pakistan: Mullah Fazlullah

Mullah Fazlullah has been made head of the Pakistani Taliban (TTP). He is seen as a particularly ruthless commander whose men in October 2012 shot teenaged schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head as she was on a bus.

Mullah Fazlullah’s notoriety does not stem entirely from this incident. He is still remembered for his atrocities in Swat – for ransacking music shops, carrying out public executions and attempting to enforce a brutal moral code of Islamic law in addition to banning girls’ education and destroying schools,

He was the pioneer of what many in Pakistan and internationally believe to be a senseless campaign against the United Nations-funded polio vaccination drive.

He is well-known to the government. In 2009 it accepted all his conditions and enacted Sharia law in Swat but Mullah Fazlullah still refused to disarm.

Many in Pakistan believe that his appointment could trigger divisions within the faction-riddled Taliban.

• Pray for this man and those who surround him to encounter Jesus Christ in a life changing way.
• Pray that the evil he might seek to engage in will be stopped by the hand of Almighty God and he will cease to be an instrument of evil.
• Pray for the nation of Pakistan as it faces this challenge, and for the church to be light and salt in the midst of the pain and concerns of these changes.

Source of story: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-24859657