Pak deal is with Mullah Omar's men: Report

The much-talked about deal between tribal elders in Waziristan and Pakistan government, which was defended by President Pervez Musharraf during his recent US visit, was actually signed by pro-Taliban militants owing allegiance to Mullah Omar, a media report said on Saturday.

The agreement, which aroused suspicion all around was signed with militants and not with tribal elders, as is being officially claimed, it said.

'As such the argument that the peace agreement is against the Taliban, and not with the Taliban, just does not hold water. One expert asks, how could the militants in North Waziristan, who owe their allegiance to Mullah Omar and his commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, who is responsible for southern Afghanistan, sign a deal against their brothers in arms', Dawn quoted an official as saying.

The deal was signed between the administrator of North Waziristan and pro-Taliban militants and clerics who, until September 5, were on the wanted list.

Among them are Hafiz Gul Bahadar, Maulana Sadiq Noor who were top militant clerics and the remaining six, Azad Khan, Maulvi Saifullah, Maulvi Ahmad Shah Jehan, Azmat Ali, Hafiz Amir Hamza and Mir Sharaf, were nominated by them to co-sign the agreement.

The agreement says that there will be no cross-border infiltration but NATO military officials stationed in Afghanistan have been quoted as saying there is a 300 percent increase in militant activity in the Afghan border regions.

The death of a local militant commander, Maulvi Mir Kalam and his men in an operation across the border and the capture of 10 of their comrades by security forces is a case in point, it said.

The deal stipulated there would be no targeted killings but recent reports indicate that alleged spies have been assassinated by militants in the region, the report said.

Under the terms of the deal all the militants will be pardoned by the government subsequent to the deal. The agreement identifies them as fareeq-e-doum (second party).

As the names indicate, no tribal elder from the Utmanzai tribe was among the signatories, as claimed by the government, the newspaper reported.

The 45-member inter-tribal jirga was handpicked and nominated by the North-Western Frontier Province Governor Ali Muhammad Jan Aurakzai who countersigned the document as the interlocutors.

The deal stipulates that foreign militants living in North Waziristan would either leave or live peacefully.

But no mechanism has been put in place to oversee and verify either their conduct or the departure of those who violate the agreement, it said, adding that over a month after the signing of the deal, there is no progress on this front.

Contrary to the government's assertion, troops deployed in and around Miramshah, the headquarters of the Waziristan agency, have been removed, barring those manning the borders.

All weapons seized from militants have been returned and their men released, it said.

The deal was partially endorsed by US President George W Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair during Musharraf's recent visit to US and UK during which the Pakistan President tried to sell it as the best possible initiative to stop infiltration.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has already expressed his reservations on the deal.

Ever since then, there have been more kidnappings, robberies and murders as the Khasadar force - a ragtag, untrained tribal force left to man the posts - has neither the teeth nor the wherewithal to rein in the militants or control crime, area residents point out, the newspaper said.

Eyewitnesses say there are now not one but two Taliban offices in Miramshah to maintain law and order, control crime and address public complaints, a serious violation of the agreement by the Taliban who had undertaken not to form a parallel administration in the tribal region.

There is growing evidence that militants are now more assertive than they were before the September 5 agreement, it said.