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Pak Taliban pull back to Swat stronghold

AP, Peshawar
Taliban militants who had seized a district just 100km from Pakistan's capital began pulling out yesterday after the government warned that it would use force to evict them.
The withdrawal from Buner, if completed, eliminates the most immediate threat to a peace agreement in the neighbouring militant-held Swat Valley that the US government worries has created a haven for allies of al-Qaeda.
But is unlikely to quell fears that Islamabad is failing to deal forcefully with Islamist militants slowly expanding into the heart of the nuclear-armed country from lawless areas close to the Afghan order.
’IV images showed dozens of militantsemerging on Friday from a high-walled villa that served as their headquarters in Buner, a rural area in the foothills of the Karakoram mountains. The men, most of them masked with black scarves and carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, clambered into several pickup trucks and minibuses before driving away
Syed Mohammed Javed, the top government administrator in the region, said a hard-line cleric who helped mediate the disputed peace deal persuaded the Taliban to return to Swat in a meeting on Friday.
"We told them that we have a deal, we have a peace agreement. We told them not to become a tool in the hands of someone aiming at sabotaging the peace in the region." Javed told The Associated Press by telephone from Buner.
Javed said he and the aging cleric, Sufi Muhammad, were leading the Taliban convoy back to Mingora, Swat's main town, but it was not clear when they would cross the mountains passes leading out ofBuner.
The top US military officer said Friday that he was "extremely concerned" by the situation in Buner.
"We're certainly moving closer to the tipping point" where Pakistan could be overtaken by Islamic extremists, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview' from Afghanistan, even as reports indicated a pullback was underway.
Pakistan agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and surrounding areas of the northwest in return for a cease-fire that halted nearly two years of bloody fighting between militants and Pakistani securityforces.
But hard-liners have seized on the concession to demand Islamic law across the country', and the SwatTaliban used it to justify their push into Buner, putting them within striking distance of the capital and key roads leading to the main northwestern city of Peshawar.
The US is considering rooting out militant sanctuaries in Pakistan critical to success in the Afghan war. It also worries about the security of Pakistan's nuclear weapons.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Wednesday that Pakistan's leaders were "abdicating to the Taliban" in Swat, and on Thursday told US lawmakers the Obama administration was trying to convince Islamabad to shift its traditional security focus from archrival India to Islamic extremists. With the pressure mounting, the army, whose ability and commitment to combating Islamist extremists is under intense international scrutiny, issued an unusually tough statement Friday.
Apparently referring to the Swat deal, army chief Gen. Ashfag Parvez Kayani said it was ' meant to give the reconciliatory forces a chance (but) must not be taken for a concession to the militants."
Kayani said the army was "determined to root out the menace of terrorism" and would "not allow the militants to dictate terms to the government or impose their way of life-
Government leaders had also warned they would use force if the Swat Taliban who have beheaded opponents, torched girls schools and denounced democracy as un-Islamic continue to challenge the state.
"Those who took up arms must lay them down," Iftikhar Hussain, spokesman for the provincial government in the northwest, said earlier Friday, while issuing what he said was a "last" appeal to the Taliban to quit Buner.
But they have also sought to counter a rising tide of extremist violence with dialogue and peace deals that critics worry only grant brutal extremists impunity, legitimacy and the time and space to muster more forces.
The disputed peace accord covers Swat, Buner and other districts in the Malakand Division, an area of about 10,000 square miles (25,900 square kilometres) near the Afghan border and the tribal areas where al-Qaeda and the Taliban have strongholds.
Supporters have said the deal takes away the militants' main rallying call for Islamic law and will let the government gradually reassert control. But the militants have rejected calls for them to give up their arms.