This is regarding the confusion prevailing over Army's role in Swat. In December 2007 Army did a 'textbook' operation in Swat which is still regarded as the most successful operation of Pak history. Maulvi Fazalullah and accomplices ran away like cowards leaving his scores of disciples dead. The people of Swat garlanded Army personal when they entered the valley of Swat (my brother was part of that operation).
It was after February 2008 election and ANP came to power and in April 2009 they made an agreement with the terrorists that there will be no more bloodshed and army has to leave Swat valley. Also ANP through federal government ordered army to release 40 of Fazalullah's men. Though army resisted but had to release people on federal government orders.
Now Fazalullah gets another chance, as army was not present in Swat. This time, they started their activities inside Swat and making Swatis as human shield. Realising the uncontrollable situation, the same ANP government requested army to take action. Which army took, but this time the damage was much more as Fazalullah's men were hiding behind the civilians.
Just to remind all of us, technically speaking, no Army in the world is trained for urban warfare, as it is most difficult art of fighting when you don't recognise your enemy. The element of surprise is not with army but with terrorists. Israel Army is known as the 'smartest' army with 'smartest' intelligence agency Mosad could not fight Hizbullah recently, though Israel even didn't care for collateral damage and in the process killed around 12,000 civilians.