Local groups of Islamic militants, many using the label ``Taliban,'' have stepped up attacks this year across a 220-mile (354-kilometer) swath of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun region adjoining Afghanistan. For the first time, they've taken control of villages just outside Peshawar, which is the seat of government for the North-West Frontier Province and for a semi- autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Area along the border. Pakistan's renewed vow to use force if necessary against the Taliban and allied militant groups is ``a good sign,'' said Mehmood Shah, a retired brigadier and former security chief of the tribal area on the border. Any negotiations ``must be carried out with the military option on the table,'' he said in a telephone interview, because hard-line militants among the border tribes will back down only under force. Journalist James Rupert, head of Newsday's international bureau in Islamabad, Pakistan began his career abroad as a Peace Corps volunteer, teaching mechanics and welding in Morocco.
James Rupert writes: Pakistan Sends Troops Against Taliban in Peshawar After Attacks
Pakistan Sends Troops Against Taliban in Peshawar After Attacks
By James Rupert
June 28 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan deployed hundreds of paramilitary troops in the provincial capital of Peshawar yesterday to halt attacks by Islamic guerillas.
Platoons of Frontier Constabulary surrounded Peshawar's police stations, where officials installed concrete barriers to stop potential car bombers.
President Pervez Musharraf approved military action, Pakistani media said, after armed Taliban fighters drove into the city in the past week, intimidating residents and briefly abducting more than 20 members of the city's Christian minority.
The city of 3 million people in the northwest was calm late yesterday amid sweltering heat, though residents and local media speculated that security forces were preparing a sweep through town in pursuit of Taliban activists. A Taliban spokesman, Maulvi Omar, said the movement would retaliate against arrests of its members, a local news channel, Khyber TV, reported.
``The shopkeepers are closing their shops before dark, and I know people who have left because they are afraid we may face fighting,'' said Khalid Khan, a middle-age resident buying food in the city bazaar.
Local groups of Islamic militants, many using the label ``Taliban,'' have stepped up attacks this year across a 220-mile (354-kilometer) swath of Pakistan's ethnic Pashtun region adjoining Afghanistan. For the first time, they've taken control of villages just outside Peshawar, which is the seat of government for the North-West Frontier Province and for a semi- autonomous Federally Administered Tribal Area along the border.
Public Executions
Hundreds of fighters from two rival guerrilla groups fought with rifles and rocket-propelled grenades in mountain villages of the Khyber Agency, a tribal district between Peshawar and the Afghan border, in one of several insurgencies against government rule in the northwest. Officials said 46 people have been killed and hundreds have fled their homes in that six-day battle.
Taliban in another tribal district, Bajaur, yesterday publicly executed two Afghan men they accused of spying for the U.S., said Taliban spokesman and journalists from the area. Masked militants hauled the men before a crowd estimated at 5,000 and then decapitated one and shot the other.
Militants in the Swat Valley, a former tourist resort in the north of the province, have burned government-owned buildings this week, including a ski lodge, hotel and weather station. Taliban loyal to a prominent commander in another border district, South Waziristan, seized a crossroads town, Jandola, and the army moved reinforcements there to confront them.
`Full Force'
Musharraf met the country's army commander, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani yesterday and gave his assent for possible army attacks on militants in the northwest, saying ``terrorism must be combated with full force and all available resources,'' the independent TV station Dawn News reported, citing unidentified officials.
Pakistan on June 25 revived a promise to use force if necessary to prevent Taliban based in Pakistan from continuing attacks on U.S.-led NATO forces in Afghanistan. U.S. Army General David McKiernan, the new commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and U.S. Ambassador James Pardew, NATO's deputy secretary-general for operations, have been in Pakistan this week to discuss improving coordination with Pakistani forces after a June 10 border clash in which NATO troops killed 11 Pakistani troops.
More Attacks
McKiernan's predecessor, General Dan McNeill, said this month the Taliban increased cross-border attacks by as much as 50 percent after Pakistan's coalition government took office in April and, with the army, began a new round of peace talks with them.
Pakistan's renewed vow to use force if necessary against the Taliban and allied militant groups is ``a good sign,'' said Mehmood Shah, a retired brigadier and former security chief of the tribal area on the border. Any negotiations ``must be carried out with the military option on the table,'' he said in a telephone interview, because hard-line militants among the border tribes will back down only under force.
The newspaper Dawn criticized the government this week for moving too slowly to confront the rising militant challenge in the northwest. The civilian coalition government that took office after winning February elections has been absorbed by its power struggle with Musharraf, the newspaper said in a commentary by its Peshawar bureau chief, Ismail Khan.
``The parliament has yet to debate Pakistan's participation in the 'war on terror,' define its rules of engagement and, more important, prepare a comprehensive counterinsurgency strategy,'' Khan wrote.
To contact the reporter on this story: James Rupert in Peshawar at jrupert3@bloomberg.net.
