By Stuart Ramsay, Chief correspondent in Pakistan
(NSI News Source Info) March 24, 2009: The streets are packed with traders and shoppers.
No mercy: Taliban enforcers hold a man down in the street and flog him
Roads clogged with tuk tuk taxis, cars and lorries, but the word "Taliban" starts as a whisper then spreads through the crowds; black turbaned out-runners wield wooden sticks to clear a path and a convoy of four wheel drive cars and pick-up trucks pass though - the Taliban are back.
They are in charge. This time it is Pakistan.
London and Washington will surely watch on in horror.
A foreign policy of beating the menace of the Taliban, the scourge of all western human rights thinking, democratic principles and protectors of Osama bin Laden, has been dashed in spectacular style.
Sky's Stuart Ramsay
: I am in Mingora, the capital of Swat, a beautiful valley region in central northeast Pakistan once described by the Queen on a stay here as the "Switzerland" of the former Empire.
Once a popular holiday destination it is now a Sharia law-administered Taliban statelet.
The Pakistani army and their political masters have given up a two year-long battle and handed over control.
It now looks and feels like Afghanistan in 2001.
Taliban fighters in hooded masks with gouged-out eye holes look like the living embodiment of The Scream.
They guard the roads leading to Mingora. As my car passed through they would stare through the windows before looking away.
The Taliban had given us permission to visit, suspending the standing order to catch or kill all foreigners entering Swat.
We were the first outsiders allowed in since they took control and I drove to the Taliban headquarters in a pleasant villa in the centre of the city. 
A Taliban gunman stands menacingly in the street
The black flags of the Taliban fluttered above high double gates I passed through into a walled garden filled with Taliban elders sitting in groups on the grass, chatting and waiting for their next audience with their quasi-spiritual leader and political tactician Maulana Sufi Mohammed.
Their eyes darted with suspicion, many covering their faces as we revealed our camera.
The old guard in particular still observe the Taliban belief that television pictures, indeed all pictures and images, are an affront to the Prophet Mohammed.
The Taliban have taken control by simply overwhelming the security forces, in part with full-on militia attacks on the army, but predominantly with a simply staggering campaign of suicide bomb attacks.
The ruins of government buildings, schools, barracks, police stations and checkpoints, everywhere you travel in the region, simply beggar belief.
The central police station in the city was hit three times; there is simply nothing left.
Police and army units live in the ruins protected by sandbagged fox holes - they never leave.
The attacks claimed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of police, army and civilians. In the end the security forces offered a one-sided ceasefire.
In return for peace the Taliban can administer the region, run Sharia courts, ban women from market places, outlaw CD shops and, perhaps worst of all, stop girls' education above the age of 13.
"Swat is the start and it is a test of the religion and the system and the law. It is a step forward. Give it time and you will see this is what people want," Muslim Khan, a charismatic English-speaking leader of the Taliban, told me.
"I send a message to the people of the West. Stop spending your money on tanks and aircraft and attacking the poor people of the world.
"Look after your own poor people and let us be. You must be positive not negative. 
The crowded streets are dispersed by a Taliban convoy
"Change your policies - you cannot win here or in Afghanistan. Keep out."
Mr Khan was educated in the United States before returning to fight in Afghanistan.
He spoke to me not in the lawless antiquated ultra-conservative tribal lands that border Afghanistan; rather in sovereign Pakistan.
In reality it is part of mainstream Pakistan in name only now. Hooded Taliban enforcers are the law.
They patrol streets meting out their own form of immediate and often cruel justice.
In front of large crowds they publicly flog people who have strayed off the narrow path of propriety the Taliban set without discussion.
Drug addicts and dealers are held down.
They cry out in pain shouting for "Allah" and struggle against the powerful arms of men weighed down with ammunition and grenades strapped to flak jackets.
It is brutal, it is frightening and it is unfair to women, but it is popular.
I walked through the bazaar talking to shoppers and shopkeepers alike, passing beneath a sign banning the entry of women, watched by eagle-eyed informers of the Taliban and the Pakistan security services, but the answers were always the same.
"We are pleased with the peace, we want Sharia law and we want the Taliban," a fish fryer told me through the steam of boiling oil.
I send a message to the people of the West. Stop spending your money on tanks and aircraft and attacking the poor people of the world. Taliban leader Muslim Khan
"We haven't been able to open for proper business for months. Now we are working again and we are happy - very happy," he grinned serving up a portion of the region's trout-like delicacy.
Pakistan knows these images and stories will cause consternation across Western nations who fought to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan and who are still embroiled in deadly war with Pakistan's neighbouring Taliban forces.
The authorities tried to restrict our access and security forces tore through hotels and guest houses looking for us, but we left.
The Taliban are in control now and there is nothing to suggest they will be forced out.
Religious parties have consistently failed to impress in elections and commentators have criticised Western media for depicting the country on the verge of fundamentalist anarchy.
They may be correct but in Swat the reality and the fact is clear: the Taliban writ is the only one that runs here and they believe their power and influence will spread.
Moreover, they believe nothing will stop them.
No mercy: Taliban enforcers hold a man down in the street and flog him
Roads clogged with tuk tuk taxis, cars and lorries, but the word "Taliban" starts as a whisper then spreads through the crowds; black turbaned out-runners wield wooden sticks to clear a path and a convoy of four wheel drive cars and pick-up trucks pass though - the Taliban are back.
They are in charge. This time it is Pakistan.
London and Washington will surely watch on in horror.
A foreign policy of beating the menace of the Taliban, the scourge of all western human rights thinking, democratic principles and protectors of Osama bin Laden, has been dashed in spectacular style.
Sky's Stuart Ramsay
: I am in Mingora, the capital of Swat, a beautiful valley region in central northeast Pakistan once described by the Queen on a stay here as the "Switzerland" of the former Empire.
Once a popular holiday destination it is now a Sharia law-administered Taliban statelet.
The Pakistani army and their political masters have given up a two year-long battle and handed over control.
It now looks and feels like Afghanistan in 2001.
Taliban fighters in hooded masks with gouged-out eye holes look like the living embodiment of The Scream.
They guard the roads leading to Mingora. As my car passed through they would stare through the windows before looking away.
The Taliban had given us permission to visit, suspending the standing order to catch or kill all foreigners entering Swat.
We were the first outsiders allowed in since they took control and I drove to the Taliban headquarters in a pleasant villa in the centre of the city. A Taliban gunman stands menacingly in the street
The black flags of the Taliban fluttered above high double gates I passed through into a walled garden filled with Taliban elders sitting in groups on the grass, chatting and waiting for their next audience with their quasi-spiritual leader and political tactician Maulana Sufi Mohammed.
Their eyes darted with suspicion, many covering their faces as we revealed our camera.
The old guard in particular still observe the Taliban belief that television pictures, indeed all pictures and images, are an affront to the Prophet Mohammed.
The Taliban have taken control by simply overwhelming the security forces, in part with full-on militia attacks on the army, but predominantly with a simply staggering campaign of suicide bomb attacks.
The ruins of government buildings, schools, barracks, police stations and checkpoints, everywhere you travel in the region, simply beggar belief.
The central police station in the city was hit three times; there is simply nothing left.
Police and army units live in the ruins protected by sandbagged fox holes - they never leave.
The attacks claimed the lives of hundreds if not thousands of police, army and civilians. In the end the security forces offered a one-sided ceasefire.
In return for peace the Taliban can administer the region, run Sharia courts, ban women from market places, outlaw CD shops and, perhaps worst of all, stop girls' education above the age of 13.
"Swat is the start and it is a test of the religion and the system and the law. It is a step forward. Give it time and you will see this is what people want," Muslim Khan, a charismatic English-speaking leader of the Taliban, told me.
"I send a message to the people of the West. Stop spending your money on tanks and aircraft and attacking the poor people of the world.
"Look after your own poor people and let us be. You must be positive not negative. The crowded streets are dispersed by a Taliban convoy
"Change your policies - you cannot win here or in Afghanistan. Keep out."
Mr Khan was educated in the United States before returning to fight in Afghanistan.
He spoke to me not in the lawless antiquated ultra-conservative tribal lands that border Afghanistan; rather in sovereign Pakistan.
In reality it is part of mainstream Pakistan in name only now. Hooded Taliban enforcers are the law.
They patrol streets meting out their own form of immediate and often cruel justice.
In front of large crowds they publicly flog people who have strayed off the narrow path of propriety the Taliban set without discussion.
Drug addicts and dealers are held down.
They cry out in pain shouting for "Allah" and struggle against the powerful arms of men weighed down with ammunition and grenades strapped to flak jackets.
It is brutal, it is frightening and it is unfair to women, but it is popular.
I walked through the bazaar talking to shoppers and shopkeepers alike, passing beneath a sign banning the entry of women, watched by eagle-eyed informers of the Taliban and the Pakistan security services, but the answers were always the same.
"We are pleased with the peace, we want Sharia law and we want the Taliban," a fish fryer told me through the steam of boiling oil.
I send a message to the people of the West. Stop spending your money on tanks and aircraft and attacking the poor people of the world. Taliban leader Muslim Khan
"We haven't been able to open for proper business for months. Now we are working again and we are happy - very happy," he grinned serving up a portion of the region's trout-like delicacy.
Pakistan knows these images and stories will cause consternation across Western nations who fought to remove the Taliban from Afghanistan and who are still embroiled in deadly war with Pakistan's neighbouring Taliban forces.
The authorities tried to restrict our access and security forces tore through hotels and guest houses looking for us, but we left.
The Taliban are in control now and there is nothing to suggest they will be forced out.
Religious parties have consistently failed to impress in elections and commentators have criticised Western media for depicting the country on the verge of fundamentalist anarchy.
They may be correct but in Swat the reality and the fact is clear: the Taliban writ is the only one that runs here and they believe their power and influence will spread.
Moreover, they believe nothing will stop them.
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