silencearound
Politcal Worker (100+ posts)
militant captured from Charsadda bombing wounded condition said it all!!
Sufi Mohammad likes to be outspoken while airing his views, but on that day he was lost for words. His head buried in his hands, he sat listening intently as officials unveiled evidence linking Swat militants to the April 15 suicide bombing in Charsadda that killed 15 men, mostly police.
The evidence included a video footage of a teenaged suicide bomber who had earlier tried to target Sikandar Hayat Sherpao, the eldest son of former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao.
A militant seized from the scene of Charsadda bombing in wounded condition said it all. The plan was conceived in Charbagh, Swat, and executed by militants from Swat two months after the NWFP government signed a peace deal with the head of defunct Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi.
Sufi promised to issue a religious decree against armed militant activities at a public meeting in Mingora three days later.
Far from it, the octogenarian leader set new deadlines to the government to fully implement the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation by April 23 and termed the Constitution as un-Islamic.
He played the wrong tape, commented a senior figure in the NWFP government who met Sufi in Maidan, Dir. This is not the kind of things he had promised us to talk about.
A deeply dismayed Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, who had planned to visit Mingora the following day to announce, among other things, a grand reconciliation jirga to let bygones be bygones and burry the hatchet, cancelled the trip.
More bad news was in store as hundreds of militants entered neighbouring Buner and Shangla districts and set up a base in Hassankhel, in the tribal territory of Kala Dhaka of Mansehra district.
This was a calculated move, according to some officials. The militants had in the past made similar attempts to cut off the vital Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan with China.
What was more alarming about the militants advance in Buner was the threat they posed to the plains of Peshawar Valley in the adjoining Mardan and Swabi.
With Swat firmly under their belt, and making a foothold in Dir, it did not leave any doubt in the minds of policy-makers about the Talibans intentions to control Malakand.
If this were not enough, the collapse of local resistance to the Taliban advance in Buner, in the absence of a state security backup, rang alarm bells. That Buner could fall so easily to the Taliban was depressing and alarming.
The government dispatched a team to speak to Sufi Mohammad about the violations of the peace agreement. That the TNSM leader is a difficult and unpredictable interlocutor was well-known, but what was hitherto not clear to the government was his relative inability to rein in militants.
'The old man has been changing goal posts, commented a government official. Initially, the TNSM chief had promised to seek the militants disarming. This didnt happen.
Then, he promised that he would issue a fatwa against militancy in Swat as and when the government announced the enforcement of Nizam-i-Adl Regulation. He didnt do it.
Sufi Mohammad likes to be outspoken while airing his views, but on that day he was lost for words. His head buried in his hands, he sat listening intently as officials unveiled evidence linking Swat militants to the April 15 suicide bombing in Charsadda that killed 15 men, mostly police.
The evidence included a video footage of a teenaged suicide bomber who had earlier tried to target Sikandar Hayat Sherpao, the eldest son of former interior minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao.
A militant seized from the scene of Charsadda bombing in wounded condition said it all. The plan was conceived in Charbagh, Swat, and executed by militants from Swat two months after the NWFP government signed a peace deal with the head of defunct Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Muhammadi.
Sufi promised to issue a religious decree against armed militant activities at a public meeting in Mingora three days later.
Far from it, the octogenarian leader set new deadlines to the government to fully implement the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation by April 23 and termed the Constitution as un-Islamic.
He played the wrong tape, commented a senior figure in the NWFP government who met Sufi in Maidan, Dir. This is not the kind of things he had promised us to talk about.
A deeply dismayed Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, who had planned to visit Mingora the following day to announce, among other things, a grand reconciliation jirga to let bygones be bygones and burry the hatchet, cancelled the trip.
More bad news was in store as hundreds of militants entered neighbouring Buner and Shangla districts and set up a base in Hassankhel, in the tribal territory of Kala Dhaka of Mansehra district.
This was a calculated move, according to some officials. The militants had in the past made similar attempts to cut off the vital Karakoram Highway linking Pakistan with China.
What was more alarming about the militants advance in Buner was the threat they posed to the plains of Peshawar Valley in the adjoining Mardan and Swabi.
With Swat firmly under their belt, and making a foothold in Dir, it did not leave any doubt in the minds of policy-makers about the Talibans intentions to control Malakand.
If this were not enough, the collapse of local resistance to the Taliban advance in Buner, in the absence of a state security backup, rang alarm bells. That Buner could fall so easily to the Taliban was depressing and alarming.
The government dispatched a team to speak to Sufi Mohammad about the violations of the peace agreement. That the TNSM leader is a difficult and unpredictable interlocutor was well-known, but what was hitherto not clear to the government was his relative inability to rein in militants.
'The old man has been changing goal posts, commented a government official. Initially, the TNSM chief had promised to seek the militants disarming. This didnt happen.
Then, he promised that he would issue a fatwa against militancy in Swat as and when the government announced the enforcement of Nizam-i-Adl Regulation. He didnt do it.
