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| India-Pakistan | |
| Manhunt launched for clerics behind Pakistan tribal clashes | |
| 2006-03-07 | |
| EFL: MIR ALI, Pakistan- Pakistani troops Tuesday searched for two pro-Taleban clerics accused of instigating the worst fighting near the Afghan border since the start of the ”war on terror”, officials said. The local administration has called tribal elders to hold talks on opening the main market and ending the violence, but one tribesman said few were willing to risk reprisals from the Taleban by acting as go-betweens with the government. “We cannot negotiate because we cannot speak on behalf of anyone,” said Malik Inamullah, one of the elders. “The government wants us to take responsibility that Taleban will not attack, how can we take this responsibility? So there is a deadlock.” “The fear of the Taleban is still strong among the tribal elders. They fear reprisals if they cooperate with the government,” Inamullah said. A provincial government official in the northwestern city of Peshawar, Sikander Qayyum, told the BBC that 140 militants have been killed in the three days of clashes that started Saturday during a visit to Islamabad by US President George W. Bush. Security forces said they arrested seven suspects in overnight raids in Miranshah. “We are desperately searching for the two main culprits, Maulvi Abdul Khaleq and Maulvi Sadiq Noor, but we still do not have any information about their whereabouts” a senior security official told AFP. Khaleq, who runs a major madrassa, or Islamic boarding school in Miranshah, had called for a “holy war” against the army after troops last week destroyedan Al Qaeda training center in nearby Saidgai village, officials said. Khaleq’s brother was among some 40 militants killed in the raid last Wednesday, they added. Troops were destroying living quarters at Khaleq’s seminary on Tuesday, residents said. Noor, who also runs a preaching center and a madrassa near Miranshah, joined forces with Khaleq and on Saturday hundreds of armed Islamic students occupied the main buildings in Miranshah and attacked military posts from several directions, the officials said. Officials said Noor and Khaleq have been trying to impose strict Islamic laws in Miranshah and are closely linked to the Taleban, the fundamentalist regime ousted from Afghanistan in a US-led invasion in late 2001. Government forces late last year raided cleric Noor’s seminary following intelligence that he was providing shelter to Al Qaeda and Taleban fugitives. However there were no arrests.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 seminary is now a cockroah cemetary. rot in hell...islamists. |
| Posted by: anymouse 2006-03-07 14:58 |