ISLAMABAD – After weeks of consolidating their control over large areas of the Northwest Frontier Province, the Taliban are in retreat.
On Friday, Maulana Fazullah, the firebrand Taliban boss in the Swat Valley, ordered his most trusted military chief, Commander Fateh, to leave Buner, a neighboring valley that Fateh seized on Monday.
The Pakistani authorities warned the militants on Thursday that they were ready to remove them by force if they did not lay down their arms and abide by a peace agreement hammered out in February.
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| Mohammad Sajjad / AP |
| Taliban militants hold their weapons outside a mosque in Daggar, Buner’s main town on Thursday. |
According to the deal, the government ceded power to the Taliban in the Swat Valley and allowed them to impose Islamic law in the area in return for a cease-fire – ending two years of on and off military operations there.
But last weekend at a large gathering of supporters in the valley, the Taliban announced they would not lay down their arms and openly challenged the state. They declared that democracy was un-Islamic and called for harsh Islamic laws, known as sharia, to replace Pakistan’s constitution.
The next day, they began their advance into Buner. That valley’s proximity to the capital, Islamabad, just 70 miles and a five-hour drive away, sounded alarm bells in Washington.
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