Pakistan militants say could extend truce

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-02-22 19:20

MINGORA, Pakistan -- Militants who led a deadly campaign to enforce Islamic law in Pakistan's Swat valley have announced they could extend a 10-day ceasefire with the government once sharia is implemented.

Pakistani Islamists gather at a camp before a peace rally at Mingora in the troubled Swat valley on February 18. [Agencies]

"We can do a permanent ceasefire if the government builds confidence about its intentions," said militant leader Maulana Fazlullah on his illegal radio station, after a government official said a permanent truce had been agreed.

Fazlullah spoke after talks with pro-Taliban cleric Soofi Mohammad, who signed a deal last Monday with the government to enforce sharia law in what was widely seen as a concession to militants with uncertain chances of peace.

No date has been announced for when sharia law would take effect. It is also not clear how the system, which supporters say will be faster than the penal courts, will be implemented or who will be responsible for justice.

Thousands of Fazlullah's supporters have spent nearly two years waging a terrifying campaign to enforce sharia law in Swat, beheading opponents, bombing girls' schools, outlawing entertainment and fighting government forces.

Past peace deals between the government and militants have collapsed. Gaps also emerged Sunday on whether Fazlullah would allow girls' schools to re-open.

"Girls can take examinations, but after covering themselves according to sharia. The Shoora (Fazlullah's consultative council) will decide about their education," Fazlullah said on the radio.

Pakistan's deal provoked alarm in the United States, Europe, Afghanistan and India, worried that it will embolden militants in the North West Frontier Province, which is rife with Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists.

Many in Pakistan's secular elite are appalled that the government agreed to sharia in Swat, once a princely state and the country's only ski resort, which is just a morning's drive from the capital Islamabad.

Fazlullah's spokesman Muslim Khan said any truce extension would be reviewed when it runs out on Wednesday.

"We declared a 10-day ceasefire just after the agreement was signed and you will see an exemplary peace prevail in the valley once sharia is enforced.

"In the next five or six days, our shoora is meeting and it will decide about a permanent ceasefire," Khan told AFP.

The top government official in Swat, district commissioner Syed Mohammad Javed, said Saturday that Fazlullah had already agreed to a permanent ceasefire, laying bare the propsect of little agreement between the two camps.

He also said that although boys' schools will re-open from Monday, "talks are in progress with the Taliban to re-open girls' schools".

The president of the private schools' association, Ziauddin Yousafzai, said that all private schools would re-open Monday.

Javed said some 100 schools destroyed or burnt by the Taliban would be rebuilt and that classes until then would be held in tents.

Residents of Mingora, the main town in Swat, said life was spluttering back to normal under the temporary ceasefire.

"Markets and bazaars are crowded and traffic police are back on the roads," resident Ghafoor Khan told AFP by telephone.

"You feel at ease when going out... We can sleep fearlessly. The dreadful gunfire we used to hear every night has ended. People are returning to their homes and several families in my neighbourhood have come back," he said.

The regional police chief, Shaukat Hayat, also asked all personnel who fled during the unrest to return to duty.