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Five Killed in Swat Valley

Taliban advance beyond stronghold

AP, Peshawar
Police and tribesmen battled Taliban militants attempting to expand their stronghold in Pakistan's Swat Valley, leaving at least five people dead, authorities said yesterday.
Police said a group of Pakistani Taliban fighters crossed late Monday from Swat into Buner, a previously peaceful district on the Indus River just 60 miles (100 kilometers) northwest of the capital, Islamabad.
After the militants ignored appeals from community leaders to go back, armed tribesmen and police confronted them, sparking a battle that left three officers and two tribesmen dead, local police officer Zakir Khan said.
More than a dozen Taliban also were killed before the battle died down, Khan said. He provided no evidence to back up the assertion or other details. He said community elders were still trying to persuade the Taliban to leave.
Taliban spokesmen could not be reached immediately forcomment.
The provincial government agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and surrounding areas to halt 18 months of terror and bloody fighting between militants and security forces that killed hundreds of people.
But President Asif Ali Zardari has yet to sign an order introducing the new legal system, fueling speculation that Washington is pressing him to hold back and that the cease-fire between the militants and the army won't hold.
Visiting US envoy Richard Holbrooke said Tuesday that the violence, including the Taliban takeover of the Swat region, had persuaded Pakistani leaders of the need to fight back.
In the past, Pakistan has struck a series of short lived peace deals with militants along the Afghan frontier that American officials say allowed the Taliban and al-Qaida to regroup and focus on attacking other areas, including Afghanistan.
The government of North West Frontier Province argues that its peace effort in Swat, which lies outside the tribal belt along the Afghan frontier, addresses long-standing local demands for a speedier justice system. The bill before Zardari foresees a mild version of Islamic, or Sharia, law and would allow authorities and police to gradually reassert control over the valley, whose Alpine scenery once attracted hordes of tourists.
But there have been signs of rising violence in several neighboring areas.
Criticism of the peace accord intensified in the past week after local television channels aired a video showing alleged Taliban militants flogging a screaming woman in public in Swat.
Rights groups seized on the undated video to warn that extremists would impose the kind of brutal justice favored by the former faliban regime in Afghanistan. Militants in Swat have also beheaded political opponents after makeshift trials.
Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said last week that the government remained committed to reconciliation in Swat but warned that it would restart military operations against militants there if its authority was challenged.
An opposition lawmaker from Swat warned Wednesday that the government lacked any clear strategy to bring peace to the embattled northwest.
"Neither are they fully implementing the Swat deal, nor do they want to scrap it and this confusion is leading the nation toward nowhere but trouble," Amir Muqam said.