Taliban Seize District Near Islamabad - It was only a matter

from The Wall Street Journal
By ZAHID HUSSAIN
April 22, 2009

ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan's Taliban have seized control of another district in the country's northwest just 70 miles from the capital after consolidating their hold on the Swat valley following a peace deal with the government, according to local government officials and residents.

The latest Taliban advance into the Buner district has spurred fears that the controversial accord, which allowed the militants to enforce Sharia law in Swat, has emboldened them to expand their influence.

Militants have been moving into Buner since the Swat peace deal was signed in February. But starting Tuesday night they seized control of the entire district, which has a population of more than one million people, local government officials and residents said. Heavily-armed militants, streaming in from Swat, occupied government offices and set up their own checkposts. Terrified residents fled their homes.

Dozens of hooded fighters carrying rocket launchers and machine guns ransacked the offices of international aid and development agencies working in the district and took away their vehicles. Some employees of the agencies were also briefly taken hostage. The militants set up their headquarters in Buner town after driving out government officials.

The Taliban have banned music and television and stopped women from entering into a popular shrine of a Muslim saint. They are also using mosques to invite local youth to join them.

A Taliban commander said Islamic Sharia courts would soon be established in the district as they have already done in Swat. Mohammad Khalil said the main objective was to end the "sense of deprivation" among locals and provide speedy justice to the people.

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for Northwest Frontier Province, warned that the militants' activities in Buner were in violation of the Swat peace accord. "After the agreement, there is no justification to take up arms," Mr. Hussain said in a statement Wednesday. He denied, however, that the Taliban have total control over the area.

Rehman Malik, the federal home minister, said the government has the option of using force if the Taliban did not withdraw from Buner. A senior military official said a military operation could not be ruled out to stop the Taliban advance.

In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Taliban advances pose "an existential threat" to Pakistan and urged Pakistanis world-wide to oppose a government policy yielding to them.

Pakistanis "need to speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory to the insurgents," Mrs. Clinton said in testimony before a House committee. She pointed to "the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing [Taliban] advances, now within hours of Islamabad."

Analysts said the fall of Buner to the Taliban came as a serious blow to the government's efforts to contain Islamic militancy, which poses a major threat to Pakistan's security. The people of the area had previously beaten back Taliban raids, but lack of support from the security forces broke their resistance.

The development came after Sufi Mohammed, a radical cleric who played a central role in signing the peace accord called his followers to continue their struggle for the enforcement of Islamic rule in the entire North West Frontier Province.

Addressing a large crowd in Mingora, the main town in Swat on Sunday, Mr. Mohammed declared that there was no room for democracy in Islam. "The Western democracy is infidels and should be rejected by Muslims," he said.

U.S. officials have warned that the Swat peace deal could turn Swat into a launching pad for militant expansion into Pakistan's more densely populated plains. The militants have made it clear they would not lay down their weapons, which is a crucial plank of the peace accord.

—Jay Solomon in Washington contributed to this article
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