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Tribesmen remove roadblocks

An elderly man listens to speeches at a protest rally organized by the Afghan defense council in Rawalpindi. As protests continued in Pakistan against US-led military strikes on Afghanistan, the Taliban ambassador to Pakistan said that over 1,500 people have been killed in the attacks since they began 25 days ago. PHOTO: REUTERS

Armed Pakistani tribesmen began removing roadblocks on the fabled Karakoram Highway yesterday after agreeing to end a protest against Islamabad's support of US attacks on the Taliban, witnesses and officials said.

But the road was still not clear for traffic and not all the tribesmen had been reached by a delegation of security officials and Islamic clerics driving their way up the scenic path of the Silk Road to tell the tribesmen to end their protest.

The government was able to convince local religious leaders of the northern areas, with the help of other senior clerics, that their protest had been "taken note of" and it was time to move on, a source familiar with a meeting Tuesday said.

"They reluctantly agreed to end the blockade in Besham and now Maulana Shamazai is leading a delegation to Thahkot to end the blockade there," said the source from the small hill town of Besham, halfway between Islamabad and the northern town of Gilgit.

The Karachi-based Shamazai is the most influential cleric in Pakistan, revered equally by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban movement and local Sunni Muslims.

Last month, he led a team of clerics for talks with the Taliban before the launch of US strikes on Afghanistan.

The Pakistani government, reluctant to take action against the hundreds of armed tribesmen perched on hilltops and beside the Karakoram Highway that snakes along the ancient Silk Road, had sent delegates and clerics to persuade them to end the blockade, which entered its seventh day yesterday.

Many tribesmen are angered at their government's decision to support Washington's war on terrorism, abandoning several years of support for the Taliban, who swept to power in Kabul in 1996 and put an end to four years of civil war in the capital.

Government officials from the northern town of Gilgit said they expected the road to be completely cleared by late evening though traffic may not be able to pass until today.

"Teams have gone to talk to tribesmen telling them the blockade has ended. It may take time to convince them, some may even refuse but they will eventually realize that the protest is over," said an official who asked not to be identified.

Residents of the mountain town of Gilgit said they sympathized with the Taliban and the Afghans but resented the blockade as food was becoming scarce and expensive.

"Why is the road blocked? Is it that Bush and Blair have to travel on the KKH [Karakoram Highway]?" said an angry Imran Nadeem, a member of the Northern Areas Council, at a special meeting in Gilgit on Tuesday. The council met for two days to discuss how to end the blockade peacefully.

Pro-Taliban tribesmen want Pakistan to end its support to the US-led coalition pounding Afghan cities to punish the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

The Pakistani government faces another standoff with thousands of tribesman in the North West Frontier Province who are bent upon going to Afghanistan to help the ethnic Pashtun Taliban in their war against Washington.

Thousands led by a firebrand radical Islamic leader, Sufi Mohammad are awaiting permission to join the Taliban's holy war.

Sufi Mohammad, who went to Afghanistan on Monday to try to convince the Taliban to accept the volunteers, was due back later in the day.

Musharraf is in a tight spot, with radical Islamic groups seeing the US campaign against the Taliban as an attack against Islam. So far he has contained the protests.
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