A Pakistani Taliban commander has ordered his men to withdraw from Buner district, a spokesman said yesterday, amid mounting alarm in the US over the Taliban advance toward the capital of the nuclear-armed Muslim state.
Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said there were around 100 fighters in Buner, a valley just 100km from Islamabad and less than five hours drive from the capital.
“Our leader has ordered that Taliban should immediately be called back from Buner,” Khan said.
Khan belongs to a faction led by Fazlullah, the Taliban commander in neighboring Swat valley, where the government has caved in to militants’ demands for the imposition of Islamic law.
He said government and Taliban representatives were en route to Buner, along with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, a radical Muslim cleric who brokered the Swat deal, to deliver a message to fighters to vacate the district.
Khan was quoted in the past week as saying al-Qaeda would be given refuge in lands under Taliban control.
US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said Pakistan’s policies in Swat abdicated authority to the Taliban, while US Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged Pakistani leaders to act against foes who posed an “existential threat” to the state.
Earlier this month parliament forced a reluctant Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari to sign a regulation to introduce Shariah, Islamic law, in Swat valley in order to pacify the Taliban.
Emboldened by the government’s readiness to appease them, the Taliban moved into Buner from Swat more than a week ago, triggering alarm over their proximity to Islamabad.
The government and opposition have been reluctant to sanction the use of force in Swat, giving rise to doubts about the army’s capacity and will to take on the Taliban.
“We will react if the writ of the government is challenged,” Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told parliament, challenging legislators to show “moral courage” to stop the Taliban.
Gilani also rebuffed concern that the militants posed a risk to the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.
“The country’s defense is in strong hands and our nuclear program is in safe hands,” he said.
The military is confronted across the northwest by a Taliban menace that is now threatening to spread into Punjab Province and the heart of the country.
James Watson — the Nobel laureate co-credited with the pivotal discovery of DNA’s double-helix structure, but whose career was later tainted by his repeated racist remarks — has died, his former lab said on Friday. He was 97. The eminent biologist died on Thursday in hospice care on Long Island in New York, announced the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where he was based for much of his career. Watson became among the 20th century’s most storied scientists for his 1953 breakthrough discovery of the double helix with researcher partner Francis Crick. Along with Crick and Maurice Wilkins, he shared the
OUTRAGE: The former strongman was accused of corruption and responsibility for the killings of hundreds of thousands of political opponents during his time in office Indonesia yesterday awarded the title of national hero to late president Suharto, provoking outrage from rights groups who said the move was an attempt to whitewash decades of human rights abuses and corruption that took place during his 32 years in power. Suharto was a US ally during the Cold War who presided over decades of authoritarian rule, during which up to 1 million political opponents were killed, until he was toppled by protests in 1998. He was one of 10 people recognized by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto in a televised ceremony held at the presidential palace in Jakarta to mark National
US President Donald Trump handed Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban a one-year exemption from sanctions for buying Russian oil and gas after the close right-wing allies held a chummy White House meeting on Friday. Trump slapped sanctions on Moscow’s two largest oil companies last month after losing patience with Russian President Vladimir Putin over his refusal to end the nearly four-year-old invasion of Ukraine. However, while Trump has pushed other European countries to stop buying oil that he says funds Moscow’s war machine, Orban used his first trip to the White House since Trump’s return to power to push for
LANDMARK: After first meeting Trump in Riyadh in May, al-Sharaa’s visit to the White House today would be the first by a Syrian leader since the country’s independence Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa arrived in the US on Saturday for a landmark official visit, his country’s state news agency SANA reported, a day after Washington removed him from a terrorism blacklist. Sharaa, whose rebel forces ousted long-time former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad late last year, is due to meet US President Donald Trump at the White House today. It is the first such visit by a Syrian president since the country’s independence in 1946, according to analysts. The interim leader met Trump for the first time in Riyadh during the US president’s regional tour in May. US envoy to Syria Tom Barrack earlier
RSS