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Taliban step into Shangla as Buner showdown looms

* FC deployed to protect govt installations
* Officials, Taliban discuss how to govern Buner
* 2 escorting policemen killed in attack on FC convoy

By Ghulam Farooq

MINGORA: Eight Frontier Constabulary platoons rushed to Buner on Thursday to protect vital state installations in the northwestern town now virtually under Taliban control, while the Taliban entered the adjacent Shangla district in another brazen move.

Local residents and police in Poran tehsil of Shangla said around 30 armed Taliban arrived in the town on Thursday morning. “They entered the tehsil in cars and are still in the area,” a police official said.

Governing Buner: The march on Shangla came after the district administration recognised Taliban’s control over Buner district by holding a jirga with a local commander to lay down procedures to govern the district.

“We will not display weapons in public, and we will stay away from undue interference in the district administration,” Taliban commanders Mufti Bashir and Ustad Yasir told the jirga which local administration officials and jirga elders attended.

Attack on FC convoy: But moments after the Taliban pledged to stay peaceful, a convoy of Frontier Constabulary was attacked in the Totalai area. Two escorting police officers were killed and another was wounded.

No group has claimed responsibility so far, but the Taliban are being suspected.

In a second attack, armedmen robbed a truck carrying supplies for the security forces in Baboo area in Khawazakhela tehsil and abducted three soldiers, local residents said.

However, there was no official confirmation.

At the jirga earlier on Thursday, the Taliban agreed to pardon some of those who had taken up arms against them, but kept others on their hit list.

Army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas insisted the situation in Buner was not as dire as some have portrayed – telling the Associated Press that Taliban were in control of less than 25 percent of the district, mostly its north.

“We are fully aware of the situation,” Abbas said. “The other side has been informed to move these people out of this area.”

The NWFP government convened a meeting of provincial heads of political parties to discuss the situation after the approval of Nizam-e-Adal Regulation and the concerns following reports that the Taliban are running a parallel administration, abductions for ransom continue and the writ of the state is far from returning to the area.

“It was decided to convene a joint meeting of all political parties to brief them on the situation in the region,” a communiqué from the Chief Minister’s Secretariat in Peshawar read.

NWFP Senior Minister Bashir Bilour said the government “reserves the right” to use force if peace accord violations continued. “But first we want to let peace come,” he told reporters in Peshawar.

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