FROM TERROR PLOTS TO CRICKET.

MIRANSHAH, PAKISTAN • For a decade, it was the world’s most impregnable terrorist stronghold, a region so remote and hostile that Osama bin Laden was thought likely to be hiding there.

Folded away in the mountains of Pakistan’s tribal belt, North Waziristan was where al-Qaida and the Taliban operated with near total impunity.

Dozens of British and European militants received training in its lawless capital, Miranshah, and over the years it was linked to several of the most serious terrorist plots ever hatched against Britain and the U.S.

Now, though, the town once nicknamed Terrorist Pentagon no longer echoes to the hum of U.S. Predator drones hunting targets from the skies. Instead, there is the gentle sound of leather on willow as cricket matches replace beheadings as Miranshah’s main source of public entertainment.

“In places where the jihadists used to make people watch public executions, we now have cricket being played again,” said Lt.-Gen. Nazir Ahmed Butt of the Pakistani Army’s 11th Corps, which now claims to be on the point of clearing North Waziristan of militants entirely.

The change in Miranshah’s fortunes is part of a dramatic U-turn in Pakistan’s own war on terror, in which the West has long accused it of playing a double game.

However, in 2014, the Taliban’s habit of biting the hand that allegedly fed it backfired dramatically. Angered by two savage Taliban attacks that followed the collapse of peace talks — including one on an army-run school in which 132 children were massacred — Pakistan’s all-powerful security launched operation Zarbe-Azb (or Cutting Strike). Since then, thousands of militants have been killed or imprisoned.

This week, The Daily Telegraph became the first western newspaper to visit Miranshah in possibly a decade, as part of a Pakistani government effort to prove that it is now taking its war on militants seriously.

While the local commander, Maj Gen Hassan Azhar Hayat, said there had been no attacks in Miranshah for the past six months, tight security surrounded the visit.

A short walk from the bazaar, the army has built a cricket stadium, which is now used almost daily for games. Previously, commanders said, the country’s favourite sport had been banned by the militants, who felt that sport of any kind “was a waste of time.”

The progress in Miranshah has come at a high price. Since the offensive in North Waziristan began, 872 Pakistani troops have been killed, and terrorism still remains a serious threat. Only last month, 88 people died in a bombing at a Sufi shrine.