NATO says Pakistan deal with militants a concern

[Coventina]

Source: Washington Post

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - NATO expressed concern on Tuesday after Pakistan signed a pact with Islamists to introduce Islamic law in the northwestern Swat valley to try to take the steam out of a Taliban uprising there.

"We would all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have safe haven," NATO spokesman James Appathuraitold a news briefing.

NATO heads an international force battling Taliban militants in Pakistan's neighbor Afghanistan and Appathurai said he did not know if the pact would make its task more difficult. However, he added: "It is certainly reason for concern."

Appathurai said NATO did not doubt the commitment of the Pakistani government and its President Asif Ali Zardari to fighting extremism. Zardari's wife, Benazir Bhutto, was killed by militants.



Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/17/AR2009021700720.html

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Once you give in to the fundies, they've won.

[barb162]

1. What a mess.

Pakistan's government lost control over its country a long time ago.

[cosmicone]

2. No s**t sherlock! n/t

[ohio2007]

3. Journalist killed in Taliban region ( covering department of peace deal )

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Attackers in a Taliban-controlled area of Pakistan shot and tried to behead a Pakistani journalist on Wednesday, according to his employer GEO TV.


The slain correspondent, Mosa Khankhel, had been covering the recent peace deal between the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in Swat Valley when he was killed, GEO TV managing director Azhar Abbas said.

"He is the first martyr of this peace deal," Abbas said, adding that he believes it is unlikely the deal will end the campaign of violence that has centered in Swat. Khankhel was traveling in a caravan with Sufi Mohammed, who was leading the peace deal negotiations for the Taliban, when he went missing, Abbas said.

His body was found about an hour later. He had been shot three times and his killers had attempted to cut off his head.

Abbas called on Pakistan's government to fully investigate the killing of Khankhel, who was the network's correspondent based in North West Frontier Province as part of GEO TV's Peshawar bureau.

His death comes a day after Pakistan's government recognized the Taliban's interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, in the entire Malakand Division, which includes Swat and its surrounding district.

snip
The peace deal is the latest attempt by Pakistan's civilian government -- which took power last year -- to achieve peace through diplomacy in areas where Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are believed to have free rein.

But analysts as well as critics within the establishment have warned that Pakistan's previous dealings with the Taliban have only given the fundamentalist Islamic militia time to regroup and gain more ground.

snip

http://www.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/02/18/pakistan.journalist/index.html

what did he know and when did he know it?