In a candid admission of its failure to achieve the twin objectives of restoring calm and establishing writ of the state in Swat, the Pakistan Army on Monday announced it has halted military operation in the troubled region in order to let the latest political peace initiative work.

“The Army had reached a stage in its operation where political and human cost had become too prohibitive to sustain it,” Army spokesman Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said at a news briefing here, adding that for various reasons the Army operation had virtually lost public support that was essential for its success.

The Army announcement came as government’s peace accord with the religious leader Sufi Mohammad appeared working to restore a measure of normalcy in the troubled region. Schools reopened and so were markets, communication was restored and the district administration resumed usual business. Sufi

Mohammad, while addressing reporters in Mingora on Monday, had called for full implementation of the Swat accord by both government and Taliban, release of prisoners from both sides, recall of Army from public places and payment of compensation to victims of the operation.

He also asked the Taliban to stop hindering Army or administration in its official work, desist from display of arms and help the government in the revival of normal business. Sufi Mohammad thought that journalist Musa Khan Khel might have been murdered by a third group and asked both Taliban and government to intensify efforts to arrest the killers.

Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said the Army had achieved some substantial progress till summer last year when the operation was stopped following a peace deal with the militants in Swat. But the militants used this breather to regroup, rearm and returned to resume their violent activities with a vengeance. Against this backdrop when the Army began phase two of the operation it had lost the initiative. Abbas said half of police and paramilitary force had deserted and administration had become dysfunctional.

“It was also difficult to operate against own people where you do not have their support to separate militants from population,” he said, adding that as a result collateral damage of human deaths and destruction had increased.

Islamabad, February 23
Pakistan Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has extended an olive branch to his former ally PML-N after its chief Nawaz Sharif accused President Asif Ali Zardari of allegedly working against the interests of his party-led government in Punjab.

Gilani telephoned Sharif's brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif and gave him a categorical assurance that the federal government would not support any "undemocratic move" to "dislodge or undermine" the provincial government.

During the call made yesterday, Gilani told Shahbaz that the fears of the PML-N were misplaced as no one is trying to "dismantle the Punjab government". He said "any hasty decisions and actions, based on miscalculation", could cost the democratic endeavours of all political parties dearly.

Gilani, a senior leader of the ruling Pakistan People's Party, said he believed in a "policy of consensus, reconciliation and mutual respect for each other's electoral mandate".

The premier's assurance came a day after Sharif lashed out at Zardari and accused the President of trying to get him and his brother disqualified from contesting polls through cases filed in the Supreme Court.

“I don't want to name anyone but Zardari should not insult us through a governor or try to get us disqualified (from contesting polls) through cases in the Supreme Court," Sharif had told a meeting of the PML-N general council. — PTI

New York, February 23
More than 70 US military advisers, mostly special forces personnel, are secretly working in Pakistan to help its armed forces battle the Al-Qaida and Taliban in the country's lawless tribal areas.

The Americans are mostly army special forces soldiers who are training Pakistani army and paramilitary troops, providing them with intelligence and advising on combat tactics, military officials told the New York Times.

But they do not conduct combat operations, the officials added. They, the paper said, make up a secret task force, overseen by the United States central command and special operations command.

It started last summer, with the support of Pakistan’s government and military, in an effort to root out Al-Qaida and Taliban operations that threaten US troops in Afghanistan and are increasingly destabilising Pakistan, the Times said.

The US effort has begun to pay dividends, it added.

A new Pakistani commando unit has sprung up within the frontier corps, which is basically a paramilitary force.

The new force has used information from the central intelligence command and other sources to kill or capture as many as 60 militants in the past seven months, including at least five high-ranking commanders, a senior Pakistani military official was quoted as saying. Four weeks ago, the commandos captured a Saudi militant linked to the Al-Qaida in a town in the Khyber Agency, one of the tribal areas that run along the border with Afghanistan.

Yet the main commanders of the Pakistani Taliban, including Baitullah Mahsud and Maulana Fazlullah, remain at large. — PTI

Islamabad, February 23
Hi-tech court rooms and a special security cell are expected to be built at the Adiala Jail in the Pakistani garrison city of Rawalpindi where at least four suspects linked to the Mumbai terror attacks are being held.

The court rooms will be equipped with cameras that will allow judges and investigators to interact with and question prisoners without moving them out of the jail, the Daily Times reported today.

Law enforcement and intelligence agencies had prepared a report asking the federal interior ministry to build the court rooms and special security cell in the jail, the daily quoted its sources as saying. This will help overcome security risks associated with transporting dangerous prisoners to court and help monitor their movements day and night.

The development is being linked to the detention in the jail of suspects linked to the Mumbai attacks and other high-profile terrorism cases, like the assassination of former premier Benazir Bhutto. — PTI

Vancouver (Canada), February 23
Gang violence is rattling residents of this western Canadian metropolis as the city makes final preparations for the February 2010 winter Olympics, say officials.

The federal public safety minister dubbed Vancouver “Canada’s gang capital” this month after hitmen shot dead a young mother driving a car while her four-year-old son screamed in the back seat.

Headlines, such as a recent story in the national Globe and Mail newspaper, “Another brazen shooting in Canada’s gang capital”, appear almost daily.

In February alone, there have been two shootouts outside busy supermarkets and numerous shootings on local streets.

On Friday, a man died after mysteriously falling from the balcony of the apartment home of another man whom the police has linked to gangs.

The police call most of the killings “targeted” but several victims have been innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time, including a family man gunned down in 2007 in his truck which the police said was the same model as one driven by a local gangster.

There have been several kidnappings also. On Friday, the police freed an 18-year-old Chinese student whose kidnappers demanded a ransom payment from his family in China. The police said five people had been arrested in the case. — AFP

Jerusalem, February 23
Israeli hawk Benjamin Netanyahu failed to convince centrist rival Tzipi Livni to join him in a broad governing coalition because of their divergent views on the West-Asian peace process.

“We didn’t reach any agreement,” Livni told reporters after their meeting in Jerusalem.

“There is an essential divergence and we have to clarify if there is a possible common path. We didn’t make progress on any essential subjects. There is no agreement on the subject of two states for two peoples and a final accord with the Palestinians,” Livni said.

However, Netanyahu appeared more optimistic. “We found many common points that require further meetings. We are trying to find a common path,” he said.

Netanyahu is thought to favour a broad alliance over a right-wing coalition that would be unlikely to last a full term and would put Israel at odds with US President Barack Obama, who has vowed to vigorously pursue peace talks. —AFP