Posted on 07/16/2007 12:16:52 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani officials struggled Monday to salvage a peace deal meant to contain militants near the Afghan border and urged tribal elders to halt violence surging across the northwest.
Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, long insisted the 10-month-old accord was key to ending extremism in the tribal region, although U.S. officials complained it provided the Taliban and al-Qaida with a safe haven.
Pro-Taliban militants in the lawless North Waziristan region renounced the agreement amid weekend bombings and suicide attacks that killed more than 70 people across the northwest, most of them policemen and soldiers.
The violence has added to the sense of crisis in Pakistan, challenging the ability of Musharraf to confront Islamic extremism as he faces a growing democracy movement ahead of year-end elections.
Signed in September, the accord was a shift in strategy by Musharraf after the army lost hundreds of soldiers in operations against al-Qaida hideouts. Troops pulled back to barracks or to posts on the border in return for pledges from tribal leaders to expel foreign fighters and halt militant attacks in Pakistan and in Afghanistan.
The deal was supposed to open the way for an extensive development program for which the U.S. pledged $750 million over the next five years and which Musharraf said would ultimately dry up support for militancy.
Some U.S. military officers claimed cross-border attacks surged after the accord went into effect, and U.S. counterterrorism officials are warning that the deal allowed al-Qaida to step up training and planning, possibly for another Sept. 11-style attack in the West.
Akram Khan Durrani, the province's top elected official, said Monday that a failure of the peace deal would have "dangerous consequences."
A delegation of government-backed tribal elders negotiated Monday with militant leaders in North Waziristan's main town, Miran Shah, an intelligence official said.
The militants were being urged to stick with the agreement and told the government would compensate people harmed by earlier military operations, the official said, who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to journalists.
The Foreign Ministry confirmed only that talks were in progress. "The peace agreement was not scuttled by the government. It remains in dialogue with the tribal elders," ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said.
Pakistani authorities were also looking into suspected links between the violence in the northwest and the battle at Islamabad's Red Mosque, where more than 100 people died in an eight-day siege that ended last week with a commando attack on Islamic militants holding the compound.
Officials suggested the mosque's radical clerics had connections with militants in North Waziristan and in the Swat Valley farther north, where a hard-line cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, went into hiding over the weekend in the face of a security clampdown.
The Red Mosque clerics and their student followers had pressed for Taliban-style rule in Pakistan and launched a vigilante campaign against vice in the capital.
U.S. officials welcomed the show of strength. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said Musharraf was working to "bring law and order" to Waziristan.
"It takes time," he said. "You don't take a region of the country that has essentially been cut off from the rest of the world for its entire history and overnight integrate it into a country, let alone the rest of the world."
Some Pakistani analysts believe Musharraf remains reluctant to take on the militants for fear of fueling resentment among a conservative Muslim population widely skeptical of his close ties with Washington.
The president also has faced a political uproar in recent months over this attempt to oust Pakistan's chief justice for alleged misconduct. Government lawyers dropped two allegations against the judge Monday without explanation, but retained most of the charges.
Critics accuse Musharraf of trying to engineer the removal of an independent-minded judge ahead of expected legal challenges to his continued rule.
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Associated Press writers Riaz Khan in Peshawar, Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad and Bashirullah Khan in Miran Shah contributed to this report.
How many more assination attempts before Musharraf is either killed or realizes he has to bring the hammer down.
$750 million to build infrastructure in Pakistan?
Hey, We’re a generous people. :-)
He is not one to try to sell a insurance policy to, he had better act fast.
I sure hope Musharraf doesn’t get assinated!
Correction: GWB (the drunken sailor) pledged $750 million of taxpayer’s money over the next five years
Pakistan attempts to revive the Waziristan Accord
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The situation in Pakistan's volatile Northwest Frontier Province is coming to a head. After a weekend of suicide bombings which targeted government security forces in North Waziristan, Swat and Dera Ismail Khan that killed over 70 Pakistanis troops, the Taliban has decided to call off the Waziristan Accord. This "peace agreement” between the government and the Taliban has contributed to the Talibanization of large swaths of the Northwest Frontier Province. The Taliban repeatedly violated the terms of the agreement, but the Pakistani government is still working to keep it alive.
From the Captain's Quarters:
July 15, 2007
Red Mosque An Al-Qaeda Operation
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The Times of London reports today that the Red Mosque leadership -- now reaching room temperature in Islamabad -- took orders from al-Qaeda's senior leadership. Pakistani intelligence officials found letters from Ayman al-Zawahiri to the two brothers who ran the mosque, and that eighteen foreign fighters joined the mosque just before it took hostages and set up the standoff:
********************SNIP************************
Why did AQ want the Red Mosque to get attacked? They wanted a high-profile martyrdom operation. Zawahiri wanted to wave a bloody shirt in Pakistan and get the populace aroused, and the only way to do that was to have the government kill some radical imams. The AQ leader instructed Ghazi and the mosque's leadership to conduct operations that would get a big response from the government and essentially force Musharraf to act.
It worked, but not as well as Zawahiri would have hoped. A few lunatics conducted suicide-bomb attacks and killed a few dozen people during and after the standoff, but no massive uprising on behalf of the radicals has been seen. Instead, it may have pushed Musharraf towards more direct action against Zawahiri and an end to the autonomy of the tribes in Waziristan. Musharraf has sent the army north to the frontier, and they may not stop until they reach Zawahiri himself. Alternately, Musharraf might invite the US to conduct smaller-scale military operations against AQ and Taliban areas in Waziristan in order to reduce the threat of further mischief by Zawahiri.
Zawahiri may have forced Musharraf to act. He may wind up regretting it.
July 15, 2007
Waziristan Tribes To Musharraf: It's On
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Events over the last few days have indicated that Pervez Musharraf has rethought his hands-off deal with radical Islamists in Waziristan. After the Red Mosque siege and seizure, the Waziris have apparently concluded the same thing. Today they announced that the Waziri tribes would wothdraw from the agreement and, in effect, declared war on Pakistan:
Pro-Taleban militants in Pakistan's North Waziristan region say they have ended their truce with the government.**************************************snip******************************
The announcement was more or less a formality. The Taliban and al-Qaeda had obviously unleashed their terrorists in the aftermath of the Red Mosque seizure. Bombs have gone off around Pakistan over the last couple of weeks, killing dozens and inspiring the usual groups to launch protests against the Musharraf government.
Now, however, this will probably serve to strengthen Musharraf. The extremists have not gained the sympathy of the middle class after the imams at the Red Mosque started taking hostages and imposing Taliban rule in the neighborhood. Most see Musharraf's action as a positive step against radical elements, and the wave of terror attacks in its wake will not likely change their minds.
It also might give Musharraf some room to allow limited NATO missions in Waziristan. That would give Musharraf an opportunity to end the rebellion without sacrificing his own troops, and it would also satisfy long-standing demands by the US and UK to take action against known Taliban and AQ camps. The radicals will probably try to move their assets out of their established camps -- which means that Musharraf had better give that green light quickly.
Zawahiri wanted a fight, and now he'll get one. Don't expect Musharraf to cut deals with these people again.
Come on AU72 Just when has this guy come across as very smart?
He’s just not smart enough to drop a nuke or two on the north.
Are the troops moving while negotiations are ongoing?
The hope of a lasting peace in that region is like the hope of a dog starting to sing Beatles’ songs. It’s not in the nature of the dog to do so.
Pakistan bombings raise fears of Taliban, al Qaeda resurgence
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It’s a wedge against the Iranian border that *will* be used when the mullahcracy is being overthrown and Iran liberated. Thanks E.
We need to be putting more of both U.S. guns and butter directly into these Pak border regions. Guns at those who we want dead....and butter for those who get out of our way.....
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