AAM DISPATCH

In February, the Pakistan government agreed to a peace deal with the Taliban that granted them the right to impose Sharia/Islamic law on residents of the Swat Valley in northwestern Pakistan in return for a ceasefire. The Pakistan government has spent more than a year fighting over control of this area. The accord that was reached between the Pakistan government and the Taliban is on the verge of collapse because militants are trying to expand their control beyond Swat Valley into neighboring districts. The U.S. has criticized the peace deal and demanded that the government step up the operation against militants. Bloomberg reports:

“The peace accord has weakened and is shaky,” Rizwanullah Farooq, a spokesman for [the pro-Taliban group] Tehrik-e-Nifaaz Shariat Muhammadi said by telephone from Swat Valley today. “If it breaks, there will be a storm in the whole country,” The group suspended peace talks with the government yesterday to protest an assault by troops that forced local residents to flee the area.

The Pakistan government initially pledged to allow the establishment of Islamic courts in the northwest of the country as a means for peace and stability in the region. The U.S. foreign policy team has made tackling extremism in Pakistan and Afghanistan its central focus and is pressing the government in Islamabad to crack down on militants.

Tasneem Noorani, former Pakistan Interior Ministry Secretary and Secretary of Commerce offers this viewpoint from Between Frontiers:

Representing a U.S. foreign policy perspective are Karl Inderfurth, former U.S. Representative for Special Political Affairs to the United Nations with the rank of Ambassador, and Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, 1997-2001, John Gastright, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs and Coordinator for Afghanistan, 2005-2007 and Daniel Markey, PhD, Senior Fellow for India, Pakistan, and South  Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations (and a reply from Mr. Noorani) from Between Frontiers:

Javier Barrera Afghanistan, Pakistan

Obama unveils his administration’s new Afghan strategy today. His plans include more troops to fight Taliban insurgents and more experts on the ground to help rebuild Afghanistan. Obama is also putting an emphasis on Pakistan with 1.5 billion dollars in aid to train the military against the militants, especially in the semi-autonomous tribal regions.  AAMTV with Geo TV Pakistan conducted an interview with Owais Ahmed Ghani, Governor of the North West Frontier Province. Here is an excerpt from the discussion:

Guests from Washington include: Ambassador Thomas Pickering, Vice Chairman of Hills and Company International Consultants and holds the rank of Career Ambassador; Lisa Curtis, Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation; Joshua White, Graduate Fellow at the Institute for Global Engagement and a Ph.D candidate at The Johns Hopkins University in South Asia studies, who recently spent a year in Peshawar. Watch the full program >

Javier Barrera Afghanistan, Pakistan