Authorities and tribal leaders in northwest Pakistan have reached a
peace agreement, after a two-week military operation to clear militants
from the area.
Administrators in the Khyber tribal region
Wednesday said tribal elders, mediating on behalf of militant leader
Mangal Bagh, pledged to stop attacks and not challenge government
control of the area.
Pakistani paramilitary forces began an
offensive against Bagh and his supporters (Lashkar-e-Islam) on June 28,
after they threatened Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier
Province, as well as a key road used as a supply route for U.S. and
NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan's new government initiated low-level talks with pro-Taliban militants after taking power earlier this year.
Elsewhere
in North West Frontier Province, Pakistani military spokesman Major
General Athar Abbas says government troops have been sent to Doaba to
disperse nearly 200 militants who have surrounded a police station. The
militants are demanding the release of seven of their comrades.
Separately,
nearly 2,000 female Islamic students demonstrated at the Red
Mosque in Islamabad Wednesday to mark the first anniversary of a
military raid there which left 100 people dead.
The group
shouted anti-government slogans and called for the rebuilding of their
seminary, destroyed during the army raid. They also demanded the
release of detained cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz, who was captured during
last year's siege.
Leaders of the Red Mosque and the adjoining
women's religious school had waged a violent campaign to impose strict
Taliban-style law in Pakistan.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and AP.
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