|
Abducted Pak envoy to Afghanistan freed |
 |
Pakistan Taliban militants have freed Pakistan’s envoy to Afghanistan following the release of more than 40 of their own men by the Pakistani authorities over the past few days. Ambassador Tariq Azizuddin was kidnapped along with his driver as he was travelling from the north-western city of Peshawar to Kabul on February 11. He was released in South Waziristan on May 17 where he was being held by fighters loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban.
Gillani Government’s overtures to jihadis
It is becoming clear that significant changes are afoot in Pakistan: Jaish-e-Mohammed chief Masood Azhar released from an Indian jail in exchange for hostages on board a hijacked Indian Airlines plane in 1999, has been released from house arrest and paraded through Bahawalpur with armed supporters. Funding for the Hizb has been stepped up and the Lashkar-e-Taiba proscribed in 2002 has announced that it will seek legal redress. In its northwest, Pakistan has moved to seek accommodation with the Taliban, initiating a ceasefire with Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. Maulana Sufi Mohammed, founder of the Al-Qaeda-linked Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi has also been released from jail. The Pakistani authorities and local Taliban militants in the restive north-western Waziristan tribal region swapped on May 14 prisoners as part of efforts for a formal peace agreement brokered by a Jirga of tribal elders. Thirty-five Taliban militants from the Mehsud tribe were freed in exchange for 12 security personnel being held captive by the rebels following talks at Razmak town. In another significant move, the Pakistan government has agreed to let judges consider the advice from Islamic scholars in court cases in parts of the volatile tribal regions of the north west. The decision marked a concession in peace talks aimed at ending the conflict with Islamic militants along the frontier with Afghanistan in a new approach brought by the recently elected Government led by parties opposed to US-backed President Musharraf. Provincial officials negotiated with representatives of militant cleric Maulana Fazlullah by appealing in part to popular frustration over failings in the justice system.
While most of these moves have been linked to the rise of a new political Government in Pakistan, there is little doubt that they are endorsed by its all-powerful military which has elements sympathetic to the Islamic fundamentalists.
Meanwhile, two missiles, suspected to have been fired by two US remote controlled aircraft, struck a house in Damadola village in the Bajaur tribal region, killing 20 people on May 15,. The incident happened immediately after the Baitullah Mehsud-led militants signed a peace agreement with the Government.
Just what is driving the Army’s efforts to reach a new rapprochement with its historic allies among the clerical order: to rebuild the military-mullah alliance that, even before its institutionalization during the regime of Gen. Ziaul Haq, was a pillar of the Pakistan State? Answer could lie in the factional politics of the armed forces.
|
