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Pakistan: 5 dead as Taliban move beyond stronghold
By RIAZ KHAN,Associated Press Writer AP - Thursday, April 9
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Taliban militants who ventured beyond their stronghold in Pakistan's Swat Valley killed five police and tribesmen in a clash that could strain a controversial government peace effort that imposes Islamic law in parts of the northwest.
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In Pakistan's south, meanwhile, police said Wednesday they had captured five suspected members of an al-Qaida-linked group who allegedly planned suicide attacks in the city of Karachi and had attacked the supply line for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Militants appear to be extending their reach across U.S.-allied Pakistan from the lawless tribal regions that border Afghanistan, leaving the government scrambling for solutions.
Police said a group of Pakistani Taliban fighters crossed late Monday from Swat into Buner, a previously peaceful district on the Indus River just 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Islamabad.
After the militants ignored appeals from community leaders to go back, armed tribesmen and police confronted them, sparking a battle that left three officers and two tribesmen dead, local police officer Zakir Khan said. Khan said more than a dozen Taliban also died but provided no evidence to back that assertion.
Behramand Khan, another police official in Buner, said the militants had handed over the five bodies to police. He said negotiations were under way for the militants to withdraw.
Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan denied the militants were trying to expand their presence into Buner, calling the incident a "misunderstanding" stemming from some Taliban fighters' desire to visit a local cleric.
"They didn't know that the mullah was not there in his village," Muslim Khan said. "When they entered Buner, some people there informed the police and came out of their houses against the Taliban and opened fire on them. When the information about the attack spread, some other Taliban went to reinforce them."
The provincial government agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and surrounding areas to halt 18 months of terror and bloody fighting between militants and security forces that killed hundreds of people.
But President Asif Ali Zardari has yet to sign an order introducing the new legal system, fueling speculation that Washington is pressing him to hold back and that the cease-fire between the militants and the army won't hold.
Visiting U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke said Tuesday that the violence, including the Taliban takeover of the Swat region, had persuaded Pakistani leaders of the need to fight back.
In the past, Pakistan has struck a series of short-lived peace deals with militants along the Afghan frontier that American officials say allowed the Taliban and al-Qaida to regroup and focus on attacking other areas, including Afghanistan.
The government of North West Frontier Province argues that its peace effort in Swat, which lies outside the tribal belt, addresses long-standing local demands for a speedier justice system.
The bill before Zardari foresees a mild version of Islamic law, or Shariah, and would allow authorities and police to gradually reassert control over the valley, whose alpine scenery once attracted hordes of tourists.
But there have been signs of rising violence in several neighboring areas.
Criticism of the peace accord intensified in the past week after local television channels aired a video showing alleged Taliban militants flogging a screaming woman in public in Swat.
Al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban have forged links with a variety of other militant groups in the country.
Police officials in the southern city of Karachi said the five suspects arrested Tuesday were members of Lashkar-e-Janghvi, a group blamed in the past for vicious attacks on minority Shiite Muslims but increasingly associated with al-Qaida and the Taliban.
The suspects were arrested in the Sohrab Goth area, a major hub for Afghan refugees and tribesmen from Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal region. Weapons, explosives and chemicals also were recovered, city police Chief Wasim Ahmad told reporters.
He said the suspects planned to strike government offices and Shiite gatherings in the city.
He said they had previously attacked a critical U.S. and NATO military supply line that runs from Karachi through Pakistan's northwest, but did not elaborate.
___
Associated Press writer Ashraf Khan in Karachi contributed to this report.
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