Taliban completely withdraw from Buner: Pakistan

PESHAWAR: Taliban militants have completed their pullback from a district just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the Pakistani capital and troops have fanned out in their wake, a senior official said on Saturday.

The Taliban's retreat to their stronghold in the Swat Valley brings some relief for Pakistani officials trying to salvage a controversial peace deal that halted nearly two years of bloody fighting in the northwestern region.

But US officials kept up their pressure for more forceful action against Islamist groups they argue present a growing threat to Pakistan's stability as well as to American troops battling in neighboring Afghanistan
.

Militants from Swat seized Buner, a jumble of mountains and farmsteads on the west bank of the Indus River, after President Asif Ali Zardari earlier this month signed the peace pact, which provides for the introduction of Islamic law in the region.

They began pulling out on Friday as officials issued increasingly loud threats of military action and a hardline cleric who mediated the peace deal intervened to defuse the tension.

Syed Mohammad Javed, the top government official in Malakand division, which includes Swat and Buner, said on Saturday that all the militants had crossed the mountains passes into Swat.

"They all have gone back," Javed said. "No one is left in Buner."

He also said that six platoons of paramilitary troops had deployed to police stations across Buner.

"If police need their help, they will assistant them in maintaining law and order," Javed said.

Javed said the cleric, Sufi Muhammad, had also given his assurance that militants would soon retreat to Swat from another neighboring area, Shangla.

Continue Reading...

Arun Shourie touts Narendra Modi as Advani's successor

NEW DELHI: In what may be the first clear advocacy of Narendra Modi for PM by a senior BJP leader, former minister Arun Shourie said the Gujarat chief minister's leadership of his state was exemplary as he had already implemented programmes being promised by political parties in their manifestos.

Speaking in Ahmedabad, Shourie suggested that it could be Modi's turn to be projected as BJP's prime ministerial nominee after L K Advani as he said, "You have an opportunity to elect the PM not only this time but in the next polls also." He said Gujarat was a model state for governance and development in the country.

Though Shourie was quick to clarify that he had voiced his personal opinion, his remarks are bound to create a stir in the party not only because they have come in the midst of the poll campaign but also as he has touched the faultlines between "gen-next" saffron leaders. Equations amongst the next rung of BJP leaders are far from easy.

Shourie's remarks are sure to go down well with Modi who has emerged as the party's top campaigner, ahead of Advani in the current LS polls, though allies like JD(U), who are eyeing Muslim support, are sure to get jitters.

Modi has been a first-among-equals as far as his peer group within BJP is concerned, a status reinforced by his re-election in December 2007 by a convincing margin, contrary to the expectations of the official faction in the party which had anticipated a modest win. Given the sharp rivalries, while Modi's position has been unstated, it is clear at party meets that he has the cadres rooting for him.

Continue Reading...