Taliban Bar Pakistan Army Convoy As Tension Grows

Taliban Bar Pakistan Army Convoy As Tension Grows

(NSI News Source Info) ISLAMABAD - April 25, 2009: Taliban gunmen stopped an army convoy from entering their valley stronghold Saturday, casting a U.S.-criticized peace deal back into doubt a day after the militants called off a move closer to the Pakistani capital. Pakistani Taliban leave Buner on Friday, April 24, 2009 in Pakistan. Taliban militants began pulling out of a recently seized district of northwestern Pakistan on Friday and returning to a stronghold where they have signed a peace deal with the government, a local official and the insurgents said. About 50 militants blocked the main road leading into the northwestern valley of Swat, halting a column of six army trucks and two jeeps, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said. The vehicles were carrying extra troops as well as supplies, in violation of the peace accord, Khan told The Associated Press by telephone. A military official confirmed the incident and said the convoy returned to the nearby town of Bari Kot. He declined to give details and spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss it publicly. Pakistani authorities agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat in return for a cease-fire after nearly two years of bloody fighting in the former tourist haven. U.S. officials and many Pakistani critics view the pact as a capitulation before extremists who have beheaded opponents, burned girls schools and said they would welcome and protect Osama bin Laden. It also grants the militants effective immunity from prosecution. Western officials worry that Swat could turn into an expanding haven for al-Qaida allies. The trouble also diverts Pakistan from tackling more established militant sanctuaries closer to the Afghan border. But the deal's supporters argue that the concession on Islamic law robs hard-liners of any justification for continuing to bear arms. The pact has been under huge strain since President Asif Ali Zardari signed the bill earlier this month introducing Islamic law in Swat and the surrounding Malakand region, an area of about 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometers) near the Afghan border. Taliban gunmen used the deal as a pretext to sweep over the high passes from Swat into adjacent Buner, a rural district by the Indus River just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Islamabad. They began pulling out on Friday after officials warned that they could review the peace deal — and amid talk that the army was preparing for action. Malakand's top administrator announced Saturday that all the militants had left Buner. But Buner police chief Abdur Rasheed Khan estimated later Saturday that at least 100 of the original 1,000 Taliban forces remained, and that the brief militant takeover had emboldened local sympathizers. A spokesman for the army, which has thousands of troops in Swat currently confined largely to their barracks, said all armed Taliban had to leave Buner. "If we get the confirmed news that they are still present then they will be expelled from the area, and for that maybe we have to move the forces there," Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told a local TV channel. The Buner advance triggered strong condemnation from the United States, where lawmakers are considering a bill granting Pakistan $1.5 billion in aid each year to help it battle extremism. "We're certainly moving closer to the tipping point" where Pakistan could be overtaken by Islamic extremists, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview broadcast Friday. Several thousand militants and members of the security forces have died in violence in Pakistan since it became an ally of the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. However, most victims have been civilians. The latest to die were nine children in the northwest Lower Dir region, when an old shell they were playing with exploded.