PESHAWAR: Pakistan has announced the creation of an Islamic appellate court in its northwest, pushing ahead with a flagging peace deal even as its offensive against Taleban extremists raged yesterday.
The army said 20 more militants had been killed in the nearly week-long assault on insurgents who advanced into two new districts in Malakand region.
Pakistan in February agreed to allow religious hard-liners to enforce Islamic law in the Swat Valley, a part of Malakand, and other districts to try and end a two-year rebellion led by a radical cleric.
But instead of disarming as required under the deal, the Taleban instead pushed further south toward the capital, taking over large swathes of the districts of Lower Dir and Buner prompting the latest army offensive. “The North West Frontier Province government announces the setting up of Darul Qaza, or an Islamic appellate court, in Malakand,” Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain said.
Hussain said two judges had been appointed to serve on the court and the government “has now fulfilled its promise,” but a Taleban spokesman yesterday rejected the court and condemned the ongoing military assault. “Any such decision under the shadow of a military operation is not acceptable to us,” Taleban spokesman Muslim Khan told AFP.
“The government should first stop the operation and then appoint judges for the court in consultations with Sufi Mohammad,” he added, referring to the pro-Taleban cleric who negotiated the peace deal.
The United States is worried that the area will become a haven for Taleban and Al-Qaeda fighters who can stage attacks against US troops deployed across the border in Afghanistan. President Barack Obama is due to meet Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the White House on Wednesday to discuss the deteriorating situation.
Hussain, the NWFP minister, said the “ball is now in the court of Sufi Mohammad” — the father-in-law of insurgency leader Maulana Fazlullah. “Now that we have fulfilled our promise, it is now the responsibility of Sufi Mohammad to ask the Taleban to lay down arms,” Hussain said. Ameer Izzat Khan, a spokesman for Sufi Mohammad, said he neither rejected nor accepted the court, and would wait to assess the judges’ performance.
Pakistan’s military said that operations in Buner were “progressing smoothly,” with a militant commander and 80 others killed and 21 vehicles slated for use in suicide attacks destroyed.
“In Buner so far, 80 militants have been killed while three soldiers were killed and eight others were injured,” the military said.
Taleban militants shot dead an Afghan national in the tribal belt after accusing him of spying for the US, an official said yesterday.
