An al-Qaeda-linked Pakistani warlord accused of masterminding the slaying of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto has issued a letter ordering an end to attacks on security forces, witnesses said yesterday.
Baitullah Mehsud, who was named by Pakistan’s Taliban movement last year as its chieftain and was alleged by the government to have links to Osama bin Laden’s network, issued the order amid peace talks with the government.
The typed letter distributed on Wednesday in the tribal region of Waziristan and in parts of North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan warned that those who violated the order would be punished severely.
“Violators of the order will be publicly hanged upside down in main bazaars,” said Mehsud, known to be one of the top militant commanders in the rugged region.
“The order is final and there will be no leniency,” he said.
A senior Taliban source confirmed the contents.
“We have issued the letter,” he said requesting anonymity.
The letter came a day after officials said that the new government, which defeated allies of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf in elections in February, had drafted a peace agreement with Taliban in the tribal belt.
It also follows the release of a senior pro-Taliban Pakistani militant, Sufi Mohammad, earlier this week after his banned hardline group Tahreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi pledged to renounce violence.
The government of Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani, a close aide of Bhutto, announced he would launch talks with any rebels who would renounce violence soon after winning the elections.
The previous pro-Musharraf government and the US’ CIA both blamed Mehsud for Bhutto’s killing in a suicide attack at an election rally in December. Mehsud has denied involvement.
Authorities have struck pacts with militants in both South and North Waziristan in recent years.
The deals brought about a temporary fall-off in violence in some parts of Pakistan but were also meant to stop attacks into Afghanistan.
However, critics, including US commanders in Afghanistan, said the deals let the militants entrench themselves on the Pakistani side of the border and intensify their attacks across it into Afghanistan.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said in Islamabad on Tuesday Pakistan should resist talking with al-Qaeda.
Earlier, Mehsud’s spokesman, Maulvi Omar, said the talks with the government were making progress.
“Talks are going well and the two sides have fulfilled their promises. We’re very hopeful,” Omar said by telephone.
The government had started withdrawing troops from different areas in South Waziristan and released some militants, he said.
But a military spokesman denied the army had pulled any troops back.
When Shanghai-based designer Guo Qingshan posted a vacation photo on Valentine’s Day and captioned it “Puppy Mountain,” it became a sensation in China and even created a tourist destination. Guo had gone on a hike while visiting his hometown of Yichang in central China’s Hubei Province late last month. When reviewing the photographs, he saw something he had not noticed before: A mountain shaped like a dog’s head rested on the ground next to the Yangtze River, its snout perched at the water’s edge. “It was so magical and cute. I was so excited and happy when I discovered it,” Guo said.
Chinese authorities said they began live-fire exercises in the Gulf of Tonkin on Monday, only days after Vietnam announced a new line marking what it considers its territory in the body of water between the nations. The Chinese Maritime Safety Administration said the exercises would be focused on the Beibu Gulf area, closer to the Chinese side of the Gulf of Tonkin, and would run until tomorrow evening. It gave no further details, but the drills follow an announcement last week by Vietnam establishing a baseline used to calculate the width of its territorial waters in the Gulf of Tonkin. State-run Vietnam News
TURNAROUND: The Liberal Party had trailed the Conservatives by a wide margin, but that was before Trump threatened to make Canada the US’ 51st state Canada’s ruling Liberals, who a few weeks ago looked certain to lose an election this year, are mounting a major comeback amid the threat of US tariffs and are tied with their rival Conservatives, according to three new polls. An Ipsos survey released late on Tuesday showed that the left-leaning Liberals have 38 percent public support and the official opposition center-right Conservatives have 36 percent. The Liberals have overturned a 26-point deficit in six weeks, and run advertisements comparing the Conservative leader to Trump. The Conservative strategy had long been to attack unpopular Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, but last month he
Four decades after they were forced apart, US-raised Adamary Garcia and her birth mother on Saturday fell into each other’s arms at the airport in Santiago, Chile. Without speaking, they embraced tearfully: A rare reunification for one the thousands of Chileans taken from their mothers as babies and given up for adoption abroad. “The worst is over,” Edita Bizama, 64, said as she beheld her daughter for the first time since her birth 41 years ago. Garcia had flown to Santiago with four other women born in Chile and adopted in the US. Reports have estimated there were 20,000 such cases from 1950 to
RSS