Children in Swat face bleak future

Many families in Swat district, in Pakistan's embattled north-west, are packing up and leaving after Islamist militants began attacking schools, reports the BBC's M Ilyas Khan, who is travelling in the region.

Can the security forces establish the government's rule in Swat and protect schools against attacks by Islamist militants?

Will the militants revoke the ban they recently announced on girls' education before the winter vacations are over?

For parents of schoolchildren who can afford to leave Swat and settle elsewhere, the answer is obvious. Leave.

For those who have to remain, there are no easy answers.

People are generally sceptical about the ability of the security forces to push the insurgents into a corner before 1 March, when school vacations end.

"Taleban are everywhere, but the army is only behind barricades," says one resident who, like most people in Swat these days, does not want to be named. "It can only make things worse."