A Pakistani militant commander close to the Afghan border threatened
Saturday to abandon an unofficial peace deal with the government,
raising the specter of more violence in the nuclear-armed country.
Hafiz
Gul Bahadur cited American missile strikes and shelling by the
Pakistani army as the reason for his threat, which was made in a
one-page statement distributed in the town of Miran Shah in the North
Waziristan region, the militant leader's main base.
"If the
government continues with such brutal acts in the future, it will be
difficult for us to keep our patience any longer," the statement said.
Bahadur
commands as many as 4,000 fighters in North Waziristan, which is under
the effective control of his group and other militant organizations. He
is believed to have a loose arrangement with Pakistan's army under which
troops refrain from targeting him or his fighters as long as his
militant group focuses its attacks only on U.S. and NATO troops across
the border in Afghanistan.
Pakistan's army doesn't officially recognize the deal. Army officers were not available for comment.
If
Bahadur were to make good on his threat, it could mean more bombings in
Pakistani cities and pose tactical challenges for the army's stretched
forces in North Waziristan and other border regions.
But the
extent of Bahadur's capabilities are unclear. Moreover, Washington and
domestic critics have urged Islamabad not to distinguish between
militant groups in the northwest, saying they all ultimately pose a
threat to the state regardless of their temporary orientation.
Pakistan's
army is currently focused on fighting the Pakistani Taliban, which has
declared war on the state and has carried out hundreds of suicide
attacks around the country. The army says it doesn't have the capacity
to tackle all the groups, and sees no need to antagonize those factions
that do not pose an immediate threat to its troops.
In the latest
violence, five Pakistani intelligence officials were killed while taking
part in a raid on a militant hideout in Jhelum, some 60 miles (100
kilometers) south of Islamabad, security officials said. The militants
were believed to be from the al-Qaida allied Lashkar-e-Jangvi group,
said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they
were not authorized to release the information.
He and another officer said some of the militants were killed or captured in Saturday's raid but gave no more details.
Washington
— which has given the Pakistani army billions in aid since 2001 — wants
action against Bahadur's group as well as the Afghan Taliban and its
allied factions like the Haqqanis, who are also based in North
Waziristan.
Bahadur's men are often targeted by American
drone-fired missiles, which rain down on targets in North Waziristan
every few days on average. Pakistan's army publicly protests the
strikes, but privately assists in the targeting for at least some of
them.
"Hundreds of our warriors have been martyred in the drone
strikes coordinated by the Pakistani government," Bahadur's statement
said. "We have been observing restraint. But now, the government, acting
on foreign instructions, is piling on the brutality against our
civilians."
Critics say that striking deals with militants in
North Waziristan is wrong given that all factions there — including
international extremists affiliated with al-Qaida — are allied with each
other and share resources, weapons and transport networks. AP
