PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Militants and authorities in a troubled northwest Pakistan tribal district signed a peace pact Wednesday after a 10-day military operation to clear the area of Islamic militants.
Pakistan poured in paramilitary troops late last month to counter militants threatening to take over the provincial capital of Peshawar and to stop attacks on convoys supplying foreign troops across the border in Afghanistan.
The agreement was signed by officials from the Khyber district administration and an 18-member group of tribal elders, who held talks with militant leader Mangal Bagh a day earlier, an official said.
"I can confirm that a peace agreement in Khyber has been signed by tribal elders and administration officials," Rahat Gul, an official of the Khyber administration told AFP.
Islamabad has been under mounting pressure from Washington to live up to its partnership in the US-led "war on terror" and crack down on extremist fighters with bases in Pakistan's troubled tribal areas.
Pakistan's new government signed a peace deal with Taliban militants near the Afghan border after winning February elections, but went ahead with the operation against the Bagh-led radicals.
A 13-member peace committee of tribal elders and Khyber administration officials has been formed to ensure the implementation of the pact which was signed in Peshawar, tribal elder Haji Shaukat Khan Afridi told AFP.
"It was assured to the government that Laskar-e-Islam has accepted the writ of the government in the area, after which the peace agreement was signed," Afridi said.
Bagh is the leader of Lashkar-e-Islam, a radical Islamist group accused by officials of kidnapping for ransom in Peshawar, harassing locals and running torture centres and private jails.
The group is also accused of attacking convoys ferrying supplies to NATO and US troops in Afghanistan that travel through the historic Khyber Pass.
Under the agreement, Bagh and his group would not enter or patrol Peshawar city, Afridi said.
All religious groups would remain peaceful and the display of weapons in the region's main town of Bara would be banned, he said.
The main market in Bara has been reopened since the agreement was signed and a curfew on the town lifted, he said.
Separately, some 200 pro-Taliban militants near the northwestern town of Hangu have surrounded a police station to demand the release of seven of their members arrested earlier in the day.
Troops have been dispatched to the station where about 35 police were holed up inside to defuse the standoff, officials told AFP.
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