[R-G] Pakistani Taliban Say They Killed 28 Men From Peace Group

[Anthony Fenton]

Pakistani Taliban Say They Killed 28 Men From Peace Group
Reuters
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/26/world/asia/26pstan.html?ref=todayspaper

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: June 26, 2008

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — The bodies of 28 members of a government- 
sponsored peace committee were found dumped on a road near the tribal  
area of South Waziristan on Wednesday, Pakistan officials said. The  
Pakistani Taliban said the men were killed because they supported the  
government, according to a Taliban statement made to a local journalist.

The peace committee was attacked by forces of Baitullah Mehsud, the  
leader of the Pakistani Taliban, near the town of Jandola on Monday,  
not far from the Afghan border, said the district coordinating  
officer, Berkatullah Marwat.

The attack on the peace committee sent a particularly chilling message  
because it was a brutal tactic by Mr. Mehsud’s forces to quash pro- 
government groups in the region, tribal elders said. The killings  
appeared to be a direct challenge to the policy of the new Pakistani  
government to negotiate with militants rather than use military force.  
Some of the men had been shot; others had their throats slit.

“This is a message to the tribal area that whoever sides with the  
government will meet the same fate,” said Mirza Jihadi, an elder from  
the tribal areas. He added that the killings of the peace committee  
members were intended “as a lesson” to people who try to resist the  
Taliban.

Maulavi Omar, the spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, said Wednesday  
that the 28 men were killed on orders of a Taliban court that  
conducted proceedings against the men, according to the statement  
received by Sailab Mehsud, a journalist in the town of Dera Ismail Khan.

The dead were among 30 members of the peace committee abducted on  
Monday near Jandola. They were then taken about 50 miles to Spinkai  
Raghzai, the stronghold of Mr. Mehsud, put on trial and killed,  
according to the account provided by Maulavi Omar to the journalist.  
The other two men are still missing.

The 200- to 300-member peace committee, formed under the auspices of  
the government last year, was led by Hajji Turkistan, a powerful  
leader of the Bhittani tribe that has long opposed the Mehsud tribe of  
Mr. Mehsud.

Mr. Turkistan apparently escaped when the Taliban forces swept into  
Jandola to round up the committee, according to local residents. His  
house and houses belonging to other members of the committee were  
burned.

Army helicopters and personnel carriers moved into Jandola on Tuesday,  
but the military did not retaliate against the Taliban, who had  
surrounded the town, the local authorities said.

In another step that showed the escalating strength of the Taliban,  
villagers belonging to the Bhittani tribe, which dominates the peace  
committee, were ordered to leave their homes near the town of Tank.

Witnesses reached by telephone said that women and children were  
running away from their homes in sweltering heat on Wednesday. By  
nightfall one village of the Bhittani tribe had emptied out, and  
another was given a deadline of 9 p.m. for all residents to leave.

The Pakistani Army negotiated a cease-fire with Mr. Mehsud’s forces  
earlier this year and pulled its soldiers back from Mr. Mehsud’s  
territory after occupying his stronghold in the mountainous region of  
South Waziristan.

The army took journalists to Spinkai Raghzai last month to show them  
how its troops had routed Mr. Mehsud from his stronghold. But several  
weeks later, Mr. Mehsud invited journalists to the area to show that  
he was back in charge and that the army had pulled away.

The killings of the peace committee members came after a series of  
violent attacks by Taliban militants across the tribal region in the  
last few days, including the public killings of six men, called  
criminals by the Taliban, in the Orakzai Agency, one of seven agencies  
in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

On Wednesday, the government convened a meeting of its top security  
officials in the capital, Islamabad, led by the prime minister, Yousaf  
Raza Gilani. At the meeting, the chief of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez  
Kayani, was given a mandate to use force in the tribal areas and the  
North-West Frontier Province when “verifiable intelligence” was  
available, Pakistani television stations reported Wednesday night.

But the reports also said that the use of force against the militants  
would be in keeping with current government policies and used only as  
“a last resort.”

“Pakistan will not allow its territory to be used against other  
countries, especially Afghanistan, and under no circumstances will  
foreign troops be allowed to operate inside Pakistan,” the government  
said in a statement after the meeting.

The statement showed the concern within the government that American  
or Afghan troops might intervene in the tribal areas to stem the  
stepped-up flow of Pakistani militants into Afghanistan, where they  
join the Afghan Taliban to fight NATO and American forces.
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