Pakistan’s government has abdicated to the Taliban in agreeing to impose Islamic law in the Swat valley and the country now poses a “mortal threat” to the world, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Wednesday.
Surging violence across Pakistan and the spread of Taliban influence through its northwest are reviving concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed country.
US President Barack Obama, who on March 27 unveiled a new strategy that seeks to crush al-Qaeda and Taliban militants in Afghanistan and those operating from across the border in Pakistan, meets the presidents of both countries early next month.
The talks illustrate US anxiety that Afghanistan could again become a haven for al-Qaeda militants.
Speaking to US lawmakers, Clinton said the Pakistani government had to provide basic services to its people or risk seeing the Taliban and other extremists fill the vacuum.
Under pressure from conservatives, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari earlier this month signed a regulation imposing Islamic law in Swat.
Asked about the matter, Clinton bluntly replied: “I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists.”
Speaking before the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Clinton said that the situation in Pakistan “poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.”
Swat was a major tourist spot until 2007, when militants infiltrated the valley from strongholds on the Afghan border to the west in support of a radical cleric.
After inconclusive military offensives and a failed peace agreement, Pakistani authorities accepted an Islamist demand for Shariah, or Islamic law, in February.
Pakistan yesterday sent paramilitary troops to a district virtually taken over by the Taliban. Around 100 paramilitary troops had been deployed in Buner district, not far from the capital Islamabad, police said.
“A platoon of the Frontier Corps has arrived in Buner to help police maintain security in the district,” said Arsala Khan, a deputy superintendent of police.
Within days of the government’s announcement of the imposition of Shariah law in Swat, 125km northwest of Islamabad, militants forced their way into nearby Buner, closer to the capital.
They said their aim was to push their version of Islam across the country.
Residents said the Taliban had occupied police stations in Buner and that gun-totting fighters were roaming market places urging people to support their efforts to impose Islamic law.
“If the Taliban continue their advances at the current pace they will soon be knocking at the doors of Islamabad,” Fazl-ur-Rehman, head of the Jamiat-e-ulema-e-Islam, the country’s largest Islamic party, told parliament on Wednesday.
Earlier yesterday militants set fire to seven trucks carrying fuel to Western forces in Afghanistan on the outskirts of Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier Province, police said.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique