ISLAMABAD, 26 June 2006 — Pro-Taleban militants declared a month-long cease-fire yesterday in a Pakistani tribal region on the Afghan border to give tribal elders a chance to broker a settlement after months of fierce fighting.
“We decided that there will be a total cease-fire in the area from our side for one month, as the government wants to set up a tribal jirga here,” Abdullah Farhad, a commander of the militants in North Waziristan, told Reuters.
Security forces have killed more than 300 militants, including 75 foreigners in North Waziristan since last year, after the military switched its offensive from South Waziristan.
“We want tribal jirga (council) to work freely and settle the issue,” Farhad said.
He said the militants were calling on the government to abolish all new checkpoints in the region and replace security forces deployed at checkpoints with tribal police.
He also demanded the release of detained tribesmen and the reinstatement of officials who had been removed from their jobs in the semi-autonomous region.
“If our demands are fulfilled, we can consider extending the cease-fire,” Farhad said.
In violence elsewhere, a gunman killed an anti-terrorism court judge conducting trials of suspects in deadly violence in a remote northern Pakistan town, an official said yesterday.
Jamshed Khan was shot in the head Saturday night in the Himalayan town on Gilgit, about 250 kilometers northeast of the capital, Islamabad, an area police official said on condition of anonymity, citing policy.
No one has claimed responsibility or been arrested over the killing of Khan, who was heading the trials of dozens of suspects in last year’s deadly sectarian clashes in Gilgit, the police official said.
Khan, about 60, was shot twice with a pistol while taking a walk in a downtown Gilgit park, and died en route to a hospital. The unidentified assailant fled, according to the official.
On Jan 8, two gunmen seriously wounded prominent Shiite leader Agha Ziauddin in Gilgit. The attack ensued violence that killed 15 people, including six members of a family who were burned alive when a mob set fire to their home.
Ziauddin and one of his bodyguards, who was wounded in the attack, died several days later at a hospital.
In another incident, Afghan tribesmen killed two Pakistani laborers on Kandhar-Spinbuldik highway. Their bodies were handed over to the Pishin Scouts by Afghan border forces and later buried.
Thousands of Afghans have obtained Pakistani national identity cards and passports. Pakistan’s intelligence agencies are tracking down Afghans who hold Pakistani passports and often misuse them.
Ainuddin, one of the carpet dealers at Chaman, told Arab News there are thousands of Afghans who hold dual nationality and vote for religious parties in Pakistan.
In a separate incident, suspected militants attacked Pakistani troops in a restive northwestern tribal region yesterday, wounding three soldiers, one of them seriously, an intelligence official said.
