Monday - February 16, 2009

Pakistan caves in to Taliban demands for shariah law hoping to end bloody attacks on women

Posting without comment except to ask if anyone is surprised.

Thought not.

By Mail Foreign Service
Last updated at 2:46 PM on 16th February 2009

Pakistan has caved in to Taliban demands to install shariah law in a popular tourism region.

The decision was a desperate move aimed at ending attacks on girls’ schools and women workers in the violent Swat Valley.

But it is likely to draw sharp criticism from the United States and other Western powers fearful that Pakistan is playing into the hands of religious conservatives whose sympathies lie with the Taliban and al Qaeda.

The concession came as a suspected U.S. drone fired missiles in the region killing at least 26 people.

The agreement was reached at talks between Islamists and officials of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) government in Peshawar today.

‘After successful negotiations ... all un-Islamic laws related to the judicial system, those against the Koran and Sunnah, would be subject to cancellation and considered null and void,’ said NWFP’s Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, referring to the holy book of Islam and the saying and teachings of the Prophet Mohammad.

Taliban militants in Swat, once a tourist paradise, called a 10-day ceasefire the night before the talks, and on Saturday released a Chinese engineer kidnapped five months earlier as a gesture of goodwill.

An uprising erupted in late 2007 in Swat, an alpine beauty spot favoured by honeymooners and trekkers alike, and militants now control the valley just 130 km (80 miles) north-west of the capital Islamabad.

They have destroyed more than 200 girls schools in a campaign against female education, and tens of thousands of people have fled their homes to escape the violence.

By striking a deal on Islamic law, the government hopes that it will be able to drive a wedge between conservative hard-liners and those militants who have fallen under the thrall of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

Religious conservatives in Swat have long fought for sharia to replace Pakistan’s secular laws, which came into force after the former princely state was absorbed into the Pakistani federation in 1969.

The move came as a suspected U.S. drone fired missiles at a building used by Taliban militants in the Kurram tribal region killing at least 26 people, witnesses and officials said.

The drone attack could further inflame tempers in Pakistan where a controversy has raged over a U.S. senator’s remarks that the unmanned aircraft were being operated and flown from an air base inside Pakistan.

APPEASING THE TALIBAN

Posted by peiper     on 02/16/2009 at 11:23 AM   
Filed Under: • RoPMA • Terrorists • War On Terror •  
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