A Pakistani military offensive against insurgent hideouts prompted the suspension of controversial peace talks with the Taliban as the country’s president sought additional foreign aid to ensure its nuclear arms remain in “safe hands.”
The developments came on Monday as British Prime Minister Gordon Brown visited Afghanistan and Pakistan, calling their shared border region a “crucible of terrorism.”
Following the military push into Dir, a district on the Afghan border, militants described their peace pact with the government as “worthless,” threatening a ceasefire that the US has criticized as a capitulation to allies of al-Qaeda.
Pakistan agreed in February to impose Islamic law in the Taliban-held Swat Valley and surrounding districts of the Malakand Division if militants ended a rebellion that included beheading opponents and burning schools for girls.
However, the concession appeared to embolden the Taliban, which staged a foray last week into Buner District, just 100km from the capital, reportedly patrolling other areas in the region as well.
Pressure on the deal grew on Sunday when authorities sent troops — backed by artillery and helicopter gunships — to attack militants in Lower Dir, another district covered by the pact. Thousands of terrified residents fled, some clutching only a few belongings.
The military said the offensive was an attempt to stop insurgents who had plunged the area into lawlessness by attacking security forces and abducting prominent people for ransom. Losing either Lower or Upper Dir would be a blow not only for Pakistan but for US efforts to shore up the faltering war effort against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
At least 46 militants were killed in the operation, the army said in a statement on Monday. Maulvi Umar, a spokesman for the umbrella group of Pakistan’s Taliban, said insurgents were in the area and killed nine troops and lost two of their own.
“The agreements with the Pakistan government are worthless because Pakistani rulers are acting to please Americans,” said Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman in the Swat Valley.
He denounced the military’s operation as a violation of the peace pact and said fighters were on alert in case the agreement was pronounced dead by Sufi Muhammad, a cleric who mediated the deal.
A spokesman for the cleric said he was trapped in his home in the same area of Lower Dir attacked by troops and that his supporters had been unable to contact him.
“We will not hold any talks until the operation ends,” spokesman Amir Izzat Khan said.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari insisted on Monday his country was doing what it must to root out domestic militants.
In an interview with reporters from foreign media outlets, Zardari said Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities were in “safe hands,” but called for more foreign support for his cash-strapped country to prevent any danger of that changing.
“If Pakistan fails, if democracy fails, if the world doesn’t help democracy, then any eventuality is a possibility,” he said.
Zardari said his intelligence agencies believed Osama bin Laden may be dead, but that there was no proof.
But other Pakistani officials and a US counterterrorism official later said they thought the al-Qaeda chief was alive.
US officials said on Monday that bin Laden was most likely hiding in the mountains along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan, in particular the lawless tribal regions.
“We continue to believe that bin Laden is alive,” said the US official, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to discuss the matter on the record.
Reports of bin Laden’s death or of near-captures have punctuated his years on the run since the Sept. 11 attacks, only to be seemingly debunked by periodic audio and video recordings.
The latest audio messages emerged last month, in which bin Laden referred to the December to January Israeli offensive in the Gaza Strip, calling it a “holocaust.”
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