The writer is author of Pakistan: In Between Extremism and Peace. THE ongoing sociopolitical changes defining transition in most Pakhtun areas raise many questions. Is Talibanisation only a Pakhtun phenomenon? Why were the mujahideen rebranded as Taliban? Did faith or ethnonationalism foster extremism? Did the latter emanate from the hollowness of the internal structure or external policies? Why was the northwest a battlefield for proxies? Why were customs and ‘jihad’ combined for ulterior motives? Why have there been different laws in erstwhile Fata, Pata, the Frontier Regions and KP? What were the consequences of indirect rule in Fata? Why was a colonial recipe favoured there?