The announcement by the government to ground its fighter jets comes a day after Taliban announced they had decided 'not to carry out any activities for one month following a positive response from the government, an appeal from religious scholars, in honour of the representative committee and in the greater interest of Islam and Pakistain'.
"We announce a month-long ceasefire from today and advise all our companions and subgroups to respect the decision and completely refrain from all jihad activities during this time period," a TTP statement issued on Saturday read.
The interior minister said government considered Taliban's announcement of ceasefire as a positive development. "After the positive announcement yesterday by the Taliban, the government has decided to halt the air strikes which were continuing for the past few days," Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan said in a statement. However,
corruption finds a dozen alibis for its evil deeds...
he warned that government would 'effectively' retaliate to any act of violence by the Taliban. "Government and the army reserve the right to effectively respond to any act of violence," the statement maintained.
Nisar clarified that the PML-N government, since coming into power in June last year, neither launched a formal military operation nor it resorted to any unnecessary action against Taliban. He said any action taken by the security forces in the tribal areas was 'a response to Taliban attack or to stop a violent activity'.
As the government announced halt to air strikes, warplanes bombed hideout of Mullah Tamanchey in Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency
, killing five suspected terrorists. Tamanchey is accused of directing a deadly attack against a convoy carrying a polio...Poliomyelitis is a disease caused by infection with the poliovirus. Between 1840 and the 1950s, polio was a worldwide epidemic. Since the development of polio vaccines the disease has been largely wiped out in the civilized world. However, since the vaccine is known to make Moslem pee-pees shrink and renders females sterile, bookish, and unsubmissive it is not widely used by the turban and automatic weapons set...
vaccination team and security forces in Jamrud tehsil on Saturday, in which 13 people were killed.
Soon after the ceasefire announcement by the TTP on Saturday, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar had told Maulana Samiul Haq
...the
Godfather of the Taliban,leader of his own faction of the JUI. Known as
Mullah Sandwichfor his habit of having two young boys at a time...
that the government will positively respond to Taliban's gesture.
Where the reciprocation by the government has revived the hopes for resumption of peace talks that floundered over killing of 23 kidnapped FC soldiers by Taliban, TTP's ceasefire announcement is being seen by some quarters as a tactical move to get some breathing space to regroup after suffering heavy losses in the air strikes. The unilateral announcement by Taliban to hold guns while backtracking from tough demands they had initially put forward for a ceasefire has given rise to scepticism even in the military circles who are seeing it a time-buying ploy to avert an expected full-fledged military operation.