Pakistan slaps ban on Taliban

PESHAWAR, August 26: The Pakistani government has finally banned the Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the anti-America and pro-al-Qaeda group fighting against the Afghan and NATO troops in Afghanistan as well as the Pakistani government in that country using the Pakistani tribal region as their bases. The announcement regarding banning the TTP came from advisor to Pakistan’s prime minister on interiors Rehman A. Malik during a news conference in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, hours after the killing of brother of a parliamentarian and his two sons and seven security guards by the militants on Monday. Waqar Ahmad Khan is member of the NWFP provincial assembly and belonging to the ruling Awami National Party (ANP) in that province. His house was surrounded by around five dozen heavily armed militants in the wee hours of Monday in the restive Swat district in northern Pakistan. They rained rockets and used other heavy arms and the house became a pile of debris within hours, villagers said. Later, bodies of Warqar’s brother, Iqbal Ahmad Khan, his (Iqbal’s) two nephews and seven bodyguards were retrieved form the debris of the razed house. The ban on Taliban also came the day when a branch of the TTP in Bajaur Agency of Pakistan, where the Pakistani forces have continued a military operation against the militants over the previous 21 days, offered olive branch to the government. The TTP spokesman, Maulvi Omar, operating in Bajaur tribal agency, in a statement, asked the Pakistani government that they were ready to stop fighting and come on the negotiation table if the government stops operation there. However, Malik told media persons that operation against Taliban would continue till the decisive phase and there will be no pause, because it would give time to the militants to regroup. About a fortnight back, briefing journalists in the border city of Peshawar, Malik had said that around 3,000 local and foreign militants were present in Bajaur Agency. The Tehrike Taliban Pakistan or TTP was formed by militants from different tribal agencies in December 2007 with a Waziristan-based Baitullah Mehsud as its head. Mehsud is considered to be supporting and providing sanctuaries to al-Qaeda elements in his South Waziristan Agency. Mehsud is also the prime suspect in the assassination of former two times premier Benazir BhuttoBenazir Bhutto, whose party is now running the government in the centre and four provinces. In his news conference, Malik said that the Pakistani government would not consider the Taliban ceasefire offer unless they renounced recourse to arms. He said the government’s writ would be established at any cost in the country as well as the restive tribal areas. A similar action against Taliban is also underway in the tourist resort of Swat, where a militant leader Maulana FazlullahMaulana Fazlullah is challenging the writ of the state. Fazlullah and his men had signed an agreement with the NWFP government on May 21, but it failed to bore fruits as the Taliban continued attacking girls’ schools and security personnel, following which the provincial government relaunched military operation there. Militancy in Pakistan’s tribal areas has swiftly moved to the settled areas during the first eight months of the current year and cities like Peshawar, Mardan, Charsadda, Kohat, Hangu and Dera Ismail KhanIsmail Khan of the North-Western Province or NWFP are no more safe. A suicide attack was carried out on a Pakistan Air Force vehicle in Peshawar early this month killing 13 people. Last week, a suicide attack took place in a hospital in Dera Ismail Khan killing more than 15 people while recent two suicide blasts at the gate of Wah Ordnance Factories in Punjab killed nearly 70 people, which is alarming. The continued Taliban attacks and their activities in the cities have alarmed the common citizen who are now facing threat while doing business in markets and other parts of cities. The attack on Wah Ordnance Factories, the most sensitive area preparing arms for the Pakistani armed forces, is an eye-opener for the security apparatus of the country, said a senior retired bureaucrat. He said how could the common citizen feel themselves at ease and would not fear Taliban when areas like Wah Ordnance Factories is not out of the range of their suicide attackers. Many in Pakistan believe the war on terror, launched by the former president of Pakistan Pervez MusharrafPervez Musharraf, would get momentum because the elected government had made assurances to the Americans that they would go a step forward than Musharraf in fighting al-Qaeda and Taliban in Pakistan and blocking their entry into Afghanistan to fight the NATO and Afghan troops there. It is believed that situation would not improve if the government, as it did in the past, continued with half-hearted efforts to eliminate the Taliban and al-Qaeda and resultantly, they had emboldened enough to come out of the tribal areas and target the cities of Pakistan. According to analysts and security experts, the militants would get stronger if the government continued with half-hearted policies of its predecessors. However, it [the government] can get success, although it may not be painless’ if it started sincere efforts to eliminate the militants. Now, only time will prove that who prevails. The government, which have all the resources and support of majority of the Pakistani people, or the Taliban, who are operating in the tribal areas with limited resources and little support from a special section of the society. ENDS