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.
PHOTO: REUTERS
"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.
The CIA has a message for Chinese government officials worried about their place in Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) government: Come work with us. The agency released two Mandarin-language videos on social media on Thursday inviting disgruntled officials to contact the CIA. The recruitment videos posted on YouTube and X racked up more than 5 million views combined in their first day. The outreach comes as CIA Director John Ratcliffe has vowed to boost the agency’s use of intelligence from human sources and its focus on China, which has recently targeted US officials with its own espionage operations. The videos are “aimed at
STEADFAST FRIEND: The bills encourage increased Taiwan-US engagement and address China’s distortion of UN Resolution 2758 to isolate Taiwan internationally The Presidential Office yesterday thanked the US House of Representatives for unanimously passing two Taiwan-related bills highlighting its solid support for Taiwan’s democracy and global participation, and for deepening bilateral relations. One of the bills, the Taiwan Assurance Implementation Act, requires the US Department of State to periodically review its guidelines for engagement with Taiwan, and report to the US Congress on the guidelines and plans to lift self-imposed limitations on US-Taiwan engagement. The other bill is the Taiwan International Solidarity Act, which clarifies that UN Resolution 2758 does not address the issue of the representation of Taiwan or its people in
US Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo on Friday expressed concern over the rate at which China is diversifying its military exercises, the Financial Times (FT) reported on Saturday. “The rates of change on the depth and breadth of their exercises is the one non-linear effect that I’ve seen in the last year that wakes me up at night or keeps me up at night,” Paparo was quoted by FT as saying while attending the annual Sedona Forum at the McCain Institute in Arizona. Paparo also expressed concern over the speed with which China was expanding its military. While the US
SHIFT: Taiwan’s better-than-expected first-quarter GDP and signs of weakness in the US have driven global capital back to emerging markets, the central bank head said The central bank yesterday blamed market speculation for the steep rise in the local currency, and urged exporters and financial institutions to stay calm and stop panic sell-offs to avoid hurting their own profitability. The nation’s top monetary policymaker said that it would step in, if necessary, to maintain order and stability in the foreign exchange market. The remarks came as the NT dollar yesterday closed up NT$0.919 to NT$30.145 against the US dollar in Taipei trading, after rising as high as NT$29.59 in intraday trading. The local currency has surged 5.85 percent against the greenback over the past two sessions, central
RSS