Refugees have given harrowing accounts of life under the Taliban in Pakistan's Swat Valley as they swarmed into camps to escape fighting between the army and militants.

They told how extremists ran roughshod in the area.

Teenager Kulsoom said she came across the body of a distant relative, his head severed and placed on his back -- punishment the Taliban claimed was for spying.

The Taliban's brand of Islamic law proved too harsh for many residents in the relatively conservative region of Pakistan and appears to be a major reason large numbers of the displaced support the military's latest offensive in the area.

Kulsoom (16), who gave just one name to protect her identity, said she left a housekeeping job that helped support her family because of growing Taliban restrictions on women's movements.

She said she was stopped on the street while wearing a regular veil and warned by Taliban fighters to wear an all-encompassing burqa. Then there was the sickening moment a few months ago when she and friends found the body of her relative.

"All I could think was that I missed the old days when we were happy," said Kulsoom, in a camp of several hundred families in the village of Jalala, south of the fighting.

Peace

Swat was once a popular tourist haven known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan" for its Alpine scenery. It began falling prey to the Taliban -- many of them locals who signed on to support a radical Islamist called Maulana Fazlullah -- about two years ago.

Sporadic military offensives and peace deals failed to push the militants out, leading the Pakistani army -- under pressure from the US -- to last week launch what it described as a decisive operation against the militants in the valley.

The operation there and in surrounding areas has displaced some 800,000 people.

The US praised Pakistan's latest offensive, saying Islamabad must eliminate safe havens used by militants to undermine the pro-Western governments in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Swat is considered a key test partly because, unlike Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal regions, the valley is supposed to be under full government control. Yet, a few thousand militants have managed to hold hostage a one-time population of 1.5m through fear.

In Mingora, a major intersection called Green Chowk is now known as Khooni Chowk - Bloody Intersection -- because beheaded bodies, two or three at time, would appear there day after day.

Notes attached to the victims accuse them of being spies or criminals, and warn people to not remove the bodies until a designated time.

To gain support, Fazlullah -- nicknamed Mullah Radio due to his use of the airwaves -- exploited a local grievance over the slow, corrupt judicial system by agitating for special Islamic courts. But soon, his supporters were burning girls' schools and threatening those carrying out activities they considered un-Islamic.

That included billiards, which meant Shaheen Bibi's husband had to close his small business.

"We are worried," the 30-year-old said, her body sore after sleeping on the ground in a camp in Mardan. "We left with nothing."

Rima, a 20-year-old who like many Swat residents goes by one name, was always afraid because her husband was a police officer, a group targeted by the militants.

"Whenever I heard the news that they'd beheaded a policeman, I'd worry about my husband," she said, as she nursed her baby in a boiling hot tent.

Fazal Rahman (35) said he made sure his trousers were hemmed significantly above his ankles -- a style some religious Muslims consider a mark of piety.

But when he refused to grow a beard, despite Taliban admonitions, he had to shave at home -- the militants forbid barber's shops from offering the service. The government machinery was so helpless, "there were no police even for traffic duty", he said.

hnews@herald.ie

- Junaid Kahn, in Pakistan