Pakistani Taliban welcome release of militant chief: spokesman
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — A spokesman for Taliban rebels in Pakistan on Tuesday welcomed the release of a top militant chief who led Islamist fighters against foreign forces in Afghanistan in 2001.
Pakistan on Monday freed Sufi Mohammad, the chief of banned hardline group Tahreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), following a peace agreement with tribal elders. He had spent seven years in detention.
His release came after the new government said it would hold talks with militants in the tribal belt bordering Afghanistan, abandoning President Pervez Musharraf's military-based counterinsurgency strategy.
"We welcome his release, it is a positive development and augurs well for peace in the area," Maulvi Omar, the spokesman for Tehreek-e-Taliban (Taliban Movement) Pakistan, told reporters in Peshawar by telephone.
"If the government accepts our other demands and frees all those held illegally and imposes Sharia (Islamic law), it would be good for the country," Omar added.
Omar said the Taliban were still waiting for the release of Abdul Aziz, the leader of the Red Mosque in Islamabad, which was stormed by government troops in July last year with the loss of more than 100 lives.
Aziz remains under detention. Pakistani forces captured him fleeing the mosque while dressed in a woman's all-covering burqa.
Officials said Mohammad's release had no links with the efforts to secure the release of Islamabad's ambassador to Afghanistan, Tariq Azizuddin, who went missing in February in Pakistan's Khyber tribal district.
"The negotiations for the release of Sufi Mohammad had been going on long before the envoy went missing," a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
Mohammad was arrested in October 2001 as he returned from Afghanistan with his followers after the US-led military launched a campaign to oust the fundamentalist Taliban regime.
Mohammad and around 30 other militants freed on Monday are going back to their homes, said Sardar Hussain Babek, the information minister of troubled North West Frontier Province.
"They have assured us that they will remain peaceful and no TNSM member will indulge in subversive activities," Babek told AFP.
"The release is in line with our policy of peaceful dialogue and it will help restore peace and order in Swat region," he said.
Swat, a scenic northwestern tourist area, has been wracked by clashes between militants and troops since late last year, part of a wave of violence across Pakistan that has left at least 2,000 people dead since early 2007.
Mohammad met chief minister Amir Haider Hoti late Saturday but did not speak to media. Followers covered his face from waiting cameramen because they view images of the human form as unIslamic.
