A new deal negotiated by Pakistan's new coalition government with the Taliban in the tribal areas on the Pakistani-Afghan border allowed the Taliban to keep their privileged sanctuaries in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, as well as their weapons.

A swap of a handful of Pakistani army and Taliban prisoners was also part of the deal. Pakistan's Ambassador to Afghanistan Tariq Azizuddin was released by the Taliban 97 days after he was kidnapped. A ransom of $2.5 million, confirmed by the Taliban, was denied by the government. And the Pakistani army agreed to cease operations and return to its cantonments.

Some 200 Pakistani army prisoners would then be released, following which the locally recruited paramilitary Frontier Corps, trained and equipped by the United States, would take over.

Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who has been charged by a Pakistani court with ordering the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, and who commands some 20,000 fighters in North and South Waziristan, agreed to cease operations against Pakistani targets beyond FATA in Pakistan's four provinces.

This means he is now free to rejoin overall Taliban commander Mullah Muhammad Omar -- and redirect his fighters against U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials made clear to their U.S. counterparts they have no interest in stopping cross-border attacks. Predictably, a surge of Taliban attacks against allied forces followed days later. Violent incidents in the Afghan east were up 50 percent over the same period last year.

This left the United States with no alternative but to use, with or without Pakistani assent, unmanned Predator drones that bomb Taliban meetings in mud-baked dwellings spotted by Afghan intelligence agents.

The body of one was found beheaded with a note that said he had been executed for spying for the United States. One Predator strike last week killed 14, including an al-Qaida Arab, according to local villagers.

Speaking privately, not for quotation, Pakistani officials say NATO should encourage Afghan President Hamid Karzai to negotiate a deal with Taliban "moderates" for a coalition government -- or fight on for another 10 years, with no hope of a clear-cut victory.

From the time they invaded Afghanistan Dec. 27, 1979, until they withdrew Feb. 15, 1989, Soviet forces fought the mujahedin resistance fighters with no holds barred.

Thousands of civilians were killed by Soviet bombers, helicopter gunships and raids by Special Forces. Every major city was occupied by Soviet troops. And they were still defeated by guerrillas backed by the covert alliance of the United States, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

The Russian ambassador in Kabul, Zamir Kabulov, first arrived in Afghanistan as a young Soviet diplomat in 1977. Looking back over 30 years, he says, "There is no mistake made by the Soviet Union that was not repeated by the international community here in Afghanistan."

Kabulov's assessment: "Underestimation of the Afghan nation, the belief we have superiority over Afghans and that they are inferior and cannot be trusted to run their own affairs ... a lack of knowledge of the social and ethnic structure of this country, and a lack of sufficient understanding of traditions and religion."

Kabulov concedes smug satisfaction as he sees "NATO soldiers and officers alienate themselves from Afghans ... by communicating with them from the barrels of guns in their bullet-proof Humvees." In Helmand province, British forces in Kajaki are fighting from positions erected by Soviet troops.

One measures the distance on the road to democracy that remains to be covered when masked men in Herat, using razor blades, lacerated the arms and hands of a female journalist on the same day that media groups expressed concern over the welfare of journalists in Herat province on the Iranian border.

A local TV reporter, Nilofar Habib, had been warned by the same men the previous week she would be executed if she didn't quit her job. And Herat Gov. Said Hossain Anwari beat up the deputy head of the local state-run television station.

An Afghan journalism student, Sayed Parwez Kambakhsh, 24, was sentenced to death for disrupting classes at Balkh University in Mazar-i-Sharif by asking questions about women's rights under Islam. The only people in court besides the defendant were three judges, a court scribe and the prosecutor.

Transferred to a Kabul court, again without benefit of a lawyer, Kambakhsh said he was tortured and given three minutes to defend himself. His family said 11 lawyers had agreed to take the case and later changed their minds.

The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists weighed in against the prosecution, arguing Kambakhsh may have been targeted because his brother had written about human-rights violations.

In Kabul, Attorney General Abdul Jabar Sabit threatened to release to the media the names of 22 members of Parliament accused of serious crimes, including murder, unless they cooperated with police investigations.

Meanwhile, Pakistan's new coalition government appears to be an on-again-off-again partnership. The Pakistan Muslim League (N for Nawaz) walking out of the ruling Pakistan Peoples Party-led alliance dashed hopes for national unity and the revival of democracy. "I left no stone unturned," said Nawaz Sharif.

"I was asked to go to Dubai for talks with Asif Ali Zardari (chairman of the PPP and Bhutto's widower). I went. We had several rounds of talks in Islamabad. Then he asked me to meet him in London. But everything ended in deadlock, so we left the government."

Both Sharif and Zardari shortly will contest by-elections to become members of Parliament. Zardari is then expected to replace Yousuf Raza Gilani as prime minister.

Whether Nawaz Sharif will then rejoin the coalition remains to be seen. Without this broad coalition, the political landscape, with food prices soaring, will again look ripe for the kind of military intervention that has ruled Pakistan for half its existence.

earlier related report
Pakistani Taliban claim responsibility for suicide attack
Pakistani Taliban militants on Monday said a weekend suicide attack that killed 13 people was carried out in revenge for a suspected US missile strike on a rebel hideout.

The suicide bomber struck near an army base in the northwestern city of Mardan on Sunday night, in the deadliest attack since a new government came to power in late March and began talks with the militants.

"Our local Taliban leaders in Mardan have telephoned us and claimed responsibility for the attack," Maulvi Omar, the spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (Pakistan Taliban Movement), told AFP.

"The Mardan attack was in reaction to Damadola," he said, referring to a missile strike last week that killed 14 people in the town of Damadola in Pakistan's tribal belt bordering Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military has accused US-led coalition forces based in Afghanistan of launching the missile from a pilotless drone and lodged a complaint over the violation of its territorial sovereignty.

Pakistan's new government launched negotiations with Taliban militants based in the tribal belt after defeating US-backed President Pervez Musharraf's political allies in February general elections.

The talks have led to a marked drop in suicide attacks in nuclear-armed Pakistan, although the United States has expressed concern, saying that any deal could let the rebels regroup.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said his government would not negotiate with militants unless they laid down their arms, a day after meeting US President George W. Bush for the first time.

"One thing should be clear," Gilani told journalists at the World Economic Forum for the Middle East. "We will not have a dialogue with militants, we will not have dialogue with extremists or terrorists."

"We only have dialogue with those forces, these tribals, who decommission themselves," Gilani said while on his first overseas trip since civilian leadership took over.

"If they lay down their arms then they are in the mainstream with us."

Taliban spokesman Omar however said negotiations between the government and the militants were in their "final stage and we hope for a positive outcome" -- but warned against following US policies.

"Our men are greatly angered by the killing of innocent people in the Damadola attack and we want the government to take practical steps to stop American intervention in Pakistani areas," Omar said.

"The government should refrain from following Washington's policy and imposing their war on us."

Omar also condemned Pakistani authorities for allegedly demolishing the houses of local Taliban in Darra Adam Khel, a tribal area near the northwestern city of Peshawar.

"Incidents like the missile strike in Damadola and ongoing action in Darra Adam Khel against our men would trigger a serious reaction from local Taliban inside Pakistan," he said.

Islamabad has fought a bloody campaign against pro-Taliban rebels and their Al-Qaeda allies since US-led forces ousted Afghanistan's hardline Taliban government in late 2001.

The violence soared last year, with more than 1,000 people dying in suicide attacks in Pakistan since the start of 2007, including opposition leader and former premier Benazir Bhutto.

Officials said last week that Pakistan had moved its troops away from villages and towns in the tribal zone as the peace talks progressed, while the militants freed Islamabad's kidnapped ambassador to Kabul.

Community
Email This Article
Comment On This Article

Share This Article With Planet Earth

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Related Links
News From Across The Stans

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News