News & Politics - Pakistani Government Reaches Ceasefire Agreement With Taliban

**sunnykerr** · 02-16-2009, 06:50 PM

Quote:

Pakistan agrees Sharia law deal

Pakistan has signed a peace deal with a Taleban group that will lead to the enforcement of the Islamic Sharia law in the restive Swat valley.

Regional officials urged the Taleban, who agreed a 10-day truce on Sunday, to lay down their arms permanently.

Once one of Pakistan's most popular holiday destinations, the Swat valley is now mostly under Taleban control.

Thousands of people have fled and hundreds of schools have been destroyed since the Taleban insurgency in 2007.

Chief Minister of North West Frontier Province Ameer Hussain Hoti announced a bill had been signed that would implement a new "order of justice" in the Malakand division, which includes Swat.

The bill will create a separate system of justice for the whole region.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan, who was recently in Swat, says the Taleban had already set up their own system of Islamic justice, as they understand it.

Their campaign against female education has led to tens of thousands of children being denied an education, our correspondent says.

US envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke, who is in India, said he needed more information on the deal but that the situation in Swat had "deeply affected the people of Pakistan, not just in Peshawar but in Lahore and in Islamabad".

Mr Holbrooke said Swat "demonstrates a key point and that is that India, the United States and Pakistan have all a common threat now... [we] all face an enemy which possesses a direct threat to our leadership".

'Very positive'

The government of North West Frontier Province had been holding talks with local militant leader, Sufi Mohammad, on making amendments to the enforcement of Sharia in Swat.

Sufi Mohammad, a pro-Taleban cleric, is the father-in-law of Maulana Fazlullah, who has been waging a violent campaign to impose Sharia in the region.

Mr Hoti said: "An agreement has been reached with Sufi Mohammad's delegation and this is a great breakthrough.

"The recommendations and proposals have been finalised, but they can only be implemented after peace is achieved."

Mr Hoti said President Asif Ali Zardari had "in principle... approved this package".

Mr Hoti said the agreement had not been made "under pressure from anyone" and was not unconstitutional.

"It was reached after realisation that it was the demand of the people."

The chief minister said the government had done all it could and asked for the Taleban to now lay down their arms.

He said a grand jirga (council) led by Sufi Mohammad would now be going to Swat to get all the factions to comply.
The Taleban have said they will examine the document before ending hostilities permanently.

The Agence France-Presse news agency quoted Sufi Mohammad as saying: "We had been holding negotiations with the government on a 22-point charter of demands for quite some time. There were differences on five points, which were removed in a meeting on Sunday."

Sharia law has been in force in Malakand since 1994. But appeal cases are heard in the Peshawar high court, which operates under the civil code.

Our correspondent says there will be alterations to the appeals process - a point of contention often cited by the militants for their continued insurgency.

The agreement will bind the provincial government to implement Sharia law in the Malakand division, which comprises Swat and its adjoining areas.

The people of Swat have been caught in the crossfire between the army and the Taleban, our correspondent says.

More than 1,000 civilians have died in shelling by the army or from beheadings sanctioned by the Taleban. Thousands more have been displaced.

The Taleban now control the entire countryside of Swat, limiting army control to parts of the valley's capital, Mingora.

Many people in Swat now would favour an early exit by the army as they have failed to roll back the Taleban or protect the Taleban's opponents, says our correspondent.

BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan agrees Sharia law deal

Ah, the sweet smell of progress... or is it success? Now the Taliban aren't just in Afghanistan, they also control significant portions of Pakistan. Is it awesome how the fight against terrorism is going? Barbers being beheaded for shaving beards, schools for girls burned to the ground... Lovely, isn't it?

*Ledi* · 02-17-2009, 05:37 AM

This is terrible.

**sunnykerr** · 02-18-2009, 04:03 PM

I know, right? Meanwhile...

Quote:

Kandahar residents feel less safe, survey shows

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- The sense of security among people right across Kandahar province has "absolutely plummeted," the outgoing commander of Canadian troops in Afghanistan said Wednesday in a brutally frank summation of the war during his nine months on the ground.

Public opinion surveys conducted by the Canadian military suggest confidence has evaporated in the face of what Brig.-Gen. Denis Thompson described as a "twisted and extreme" insurgency that thinks nothing of "brainwashing" a 12-year-old boy into becoming a suicide bomber.

"It should come as no surprise to any here that these past nine months have not been sufficient to win the war," Thompson said at the outset of his farewell statement to journalists at Kandahar Airfield.

Ultimately, the war is up to the Afghans to win, Thompson said, who also praised the courage and tenacity of his own troops.

But he also recited a long list of spectacular and frustrating attacks that have undermined not only Afghan President Hamid Karzai's government, but also the credibility of NATO's pledge to bring security and reconstruction to the region.

"Afghans are frustrated by the lack of progress of their own government and the international community, that is true," Thompson said. "But they are even more horrified by the atrocities committed on a daily basis by the insurgents."

Over the last nine months, the Taliban attacked Sarpoza prison with a truck bomb, setting free nearly 900 inmates; bombed the Afghan National Police headquarters in Kandahar, killing eight officers; and attacked the provincial council office.

At one point last May, Canadian soldiers faced a 12-year-old suicide bomber and last fall 15 Afghan school girls had acid spewed in their faces.

Militants also carried out a campaign of intimidation and assassination, killing a number of tribal and religious leaders. They've sown the streets of Afghanistan's second-largest city with dozens of roadside bombs over the last week.

In the end, all of the bloodshed has won the Taliban nothing and only served to isolate them from the Afghan people, Thompson declared.

Over the last 18 months, the Canadian military has conducted several public opinion surveys in the war-ravaged city of Kandahar, asking residents about their level of support for the Afghan government, the Taliban and their perception of public safety.

Surveys conducted in late 2007 and early 2008 found 55 per cent of respondents saying they lived in a secure environment, but Thompson said that figure is now down to about 25 per cent.

Support for both Karzai's government and the Taliban have remained largely static, he added: Roughly 70 per cent of those asked said they support the government, while the Taliban pulls down between 15 and 20 per cent support at any given time.

Although the surveys have typically been released in Canada under federal Access to Information laws, the results have always been heavily censored and kept as a closely guarded secret.

The methodology and sample size for the surveys were not released.

Thompson's candid assessment was a reflection of the changing face of the war in southern Afghanistan, where the ranks of local militants have been depleted by three years of heavy fighting.

Increasingly, those local commanders are being replaced by hard-line Islamists, such as those with the Haqqani network -- full-throated terrorists with no connection to the communities they remorselessly attack.

During Thompson's nine months in Afghanistan, 25 Canadian soldiers were killed in combat, most of them by powerful roadside bombs.

Like many other generals who have gone before him but painted rosier assessments of the conflict and Canada's role in it, Thompson cited progress in standing up Afghan National Army units and training police to handle their own security.

He said reconstruction activities have made gains -- especially in the building of roads, where progress is measured metre by metre -- but in the end conceded that development remains "painfully slow by Western standards."

CTV.ca | Kandahar residents feel less safe, survey shows

This is what happens when you fight a war on two fronts. You lose everything. And the original mission, which I thought was to catch this guy Bin Laden, gets lost in the shuffle and we wind up making everything worse.


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