Taliban flex muscle in Pakistan
PAKISTAN: Fears rose Sunday over the growing might of the Taliban in
Pakistan as militants ambushed government troops moving into a northwest
district and hardliners shaved men for listening to music.
The expanding encroachment of hundreds of armed Pakistanis from the
repressive movement, whose brethren where toppled by the 2001 US-led
invasion of Afghanistan, has sparked massive US concern for
nuclear-armed Pakistan.
The country has come under Western and domestic pressure to rescind a
deal to put three million people in the northwest region of Malakand
under Islamic law.
The accord was billed as the solution to end a brutal Taliban
insurgency that turned the prosperous ski resort of Swat into a region
of fear where girls’ schools were bombed, government officials beheaded
and from which tens of thousands fled.
More than 1,800 people have been killed in a wave of Al-Qaeda and
Taliban-linked extremist attacks across Pakistan since July 2007. But
the Taliban have shown no sign of disarming since the deal. Hundreds of
them pushed into the district of Buner — just 100 kilometres (62 miles)
from the capital Islamabad and despite a publicised withdrawal residents
say they remain.
On Sunday, militants ambushed paramilitary reinforcements, killing
one soldier and wounding at least five others in Lower Dir, another
district of Malakand, where the Taliban have been reinforcing their
presence, security and military officials said.
In the same district, police said 12 children were killed playing
with a bomb on Saturday.
“Forces are being deployed in Dir because Taliban are gathering in
the area,” said one security official. Pakistani security forces have
been heavily criticised for allowing the Taliban to act with impunity,
either incapable or unwilling to intervene.
In Buner, another of Malakand’s districts, a terrified young man told
AFP that Taliban militants shaved the heads and moustaches of him and
three friends for listening to music late Saturday — after the alleged
withdrawal. Peshawar, Sunday, AFP |
