Pakistan, May 26 -- Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has spoken in a language that militants understand least: public defiance. The wall chalking seen on Kohat Road, in Bara, Khyber and across parts of Peshawar is more than a scattering of angry slogans. It is a political message from a wounded province that has buried too many sons, policemen, soldiers, clerics, traders, and schoolchildren to be lectured again by the merchants of blood.

For years, militant outfits have tried to sell violence as faith, murder as resistance and intimidation as authority. Noor Wali and the network he represents (Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan) have thrived on fear, silence and confusion.

They have relied on the hope that ordinary citizens, exhausted by insecurity, would re...