Taliban derides ‘worthless’ truce with Pakistan

ISLAMABAD – Taliban militants declared their peace deal with the Pakistani government ‘worthless’ yesterday after authorities deployed helicopters and artillery against hide-outs of Islamist guerrillas seeking to extend their grip along the Afghan border.

The regions that straddle that frontier form a ‘crucible of terrorism,’ British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said during a visit to Afghanistan, where his country and the US have thousands of troops trying to stamp out the militant threat. Brown arrived in Pakistan later Monday.
The Obama administration is pressing Islamabad hard for more robust action against those extremists, who are threatening Pakistan’s stability and the security of troops across the border. A collapse of the peace pact would likely please American officials.
President Asif Ali Zardari called for more foreign support for cash-strapped Pakistan to prevent any danger of its nuclear arsenal falling into the hands of al Qaeda and its allies.
Zardari also said Pakistani intelligence thought Osama bin Laden – recently offered sanctuary by militants in the area covered by the peace pact – might be dead, but said there was no evidence of the al Qaeda chief’s demise.
‘He may be dead. But that’s been said before,’ Zardari told a group of reporters. ‘It’s still between fiction and fact.’
The government agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and surrounding districts that make up Malakand Division if the Taliban there would end their violent campaign in the one-time tourist haven.
In recent days, Taliban forces from Swat began entering Buner, a neighboring district just 100 kilometres from the Pakistani capital.
Pressure on the creaking peace deal grew further on Sunday when authorities sent troops backed by artillery and helicopter gunships to attack Taliban militants in Lower Dir, part of the region covered by the pact.
Paramilitary troops killed 20 suspected militants yesterday, and a total of 46 have died since the operation began, an army statement said. Maulvi Umar, a spokesman for the umbrella group of Pakistan’s Taliban, claimed that insurgents in Dir had killed nine troops and lost two of their own.
Some terrified residents have fled the area clutching no more than their children and a few belongings. At least one soldier was killed on Sunday.
A spokesman for the Taliban in their Swat Valley stronghold denounced the operation as a violation of the pact and said their fighters were on alert and waiting to see if a hard-line cleric who mediated the deal pronounced it dead.
‘The agreements with the Pakistan government are worthless because Pakistani rulers are acting to please Americans,’ Muslim Khan, spokesman for Taliban militants in the Swat Valley, told The Associated Press.
A spokesman for Sufi Muhammad said the cleric was trapped in his home in the same area of Lower Dir attacked by troops and that his supporters have been unable to contact him. ‘We will not hold any talks until the operation ends,’ spokesman Amir Izzat Khan said.
– Nampa-AP