Reply #24: Dictator Musharraf isn't our ally anyways. [View All]

[Nutmegger]

New Musharraf deal with militants

PAKISTAN'S embattled President yesterday thumbed his nose at Washington and the NATO-led coalition fighting in Afghanistan, concluding a third "peace deal" with Taliban-supporting militants in a key border region.

ervez Musharraf's latest accord with the militants covers the tribal area of Bajaur where al-Qa'ida No2 Ayman al-Zawahiri is believed to have escaped a coalition airstrike last year. It is in the heartland of the zone where US special forces have been hunting a resurgent al-Qa'ida.

Washington opposed the "peace deals" concluded by General Musharraf last year in North and South Waziristan. It claims they have led to a growth in the insurgency in the area, with Pakistani forces retreating and leaving the militants largely unchallenged.

But the latest deal covering the Bajaur Agency - one of seven tribal areas nominally administered by Islamabad - suggests General Musharraf is determined to persist with the policy.

Pakistan signs peace deal with pro-Taliban militants

In a move that some say appears 'a total capitulation' to pro-Taliban forces, Pakistan signed a peace deal with tribal leaders in the North Waziristan region of Pakistan Tuesday, and is withdrawing military forces in exchange for promises that militant tribal groups there will not engage in terrorist activities.

The Associated Press reports that the agreement is meant to end five years of fighting in the province, located along the border with Afghanistan, that has claimed the lives of over 350 Pakistani troops and hundreds of militants and civilians.

Under the pact – signed by a militant leader, Azad Khan, and a government representative, Fakhr-e-Alam – no militant in North Waziristan will shelter foreign militants.

Militants also will not target Pakistani government and security officials or pro-government tribal elders or journalists, North Waziristan lawmaker Maulana Nek Zaman said.

(It's really not Obama's fault.)