Militants declare unilateral truce

SOUTH WAZIRISTAN—A Taliban commander accused of orchestrating the murder of Benazir Bhutto has declared a ceasefire with government forces, a militant spokesman said Wednesday. Militant leader Baitullah Mehsud had ordered an “indefinite” truce following months of clashes in the tribal region of South Waziristan and neighbouring regions, said spokesman Maulvi Omar.
“We have announced ceasefire for an indefinite period because the government stopped attacking us,” Omar, the spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban (Taliban Movement) Pakistan said. “Baitullah Mehsud has ordered his people to stop attacks against Pakistani forces from Waziristan to Swat and other areas of Pakistan,” he added. “It is not a formal agreement with the government forces but we have done it voluntarily.”
The Pakistani government and the US Central Intelligence Agency have accused Mehsud of masterminding Bhutto’s assassination in a gun and suicide bomb attack in the garrison city of Rawalpindi on December 27. Pakistani officials say he is linked to Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network and is also responsible for a string of suicide bombings around the country.
More than 300 people have died in militant related violence this year, much of it in fighting between Islamic militants and troops in South Waziristan, the stronghold of Mehsud. Pakistani troops have also been battling to drive out insurgents from the tourist valley of Swat in North West Frontier Province, which borders the semi-autonomous tribal belt.
Taliban militants fighting troops near the Afghan border declared a ceasefire on Wednesday but a military spokesman said that while fighting had died down no truce had been agreed. But in a setback for Pakistani forces, a general commanding operations against the Taliban fighters in South Waziristan was killed along with seven others in a helicopter crash on Wednesday but the military spokesman said it was probably an accident. “There is no report of any fire from the area or any sabotage activity,” Major-General Athar Abbas said, adding the pilot had reported a technical fault. There was no sign of any militant activity, Abbas said. A spokesman for the militants said a decision to call a ceasefire was taken at a shura, or council meeting, chaired by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and a prime suspect in the assassination of pro-Western opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in late December.
“The government has shown leniency over the past four or five days,” Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone. “That’s why we are declaring a ceasefire.” Abbas described it as no more than a lull. “As the miscreants have stopped attacking and firing, so there is a pause,” Abbas said. “But the operation will continue.”
Several senior officers, including two brigadiers, were killed in the crash along with Major-General Javed Sultan, commander of forces in the Kohat region, which South Waziristan falls under.—Agencies