Screaming Skull
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Tuesday May 12, 2009
Alex Crawford, Asia correspondent; Sky News
The Taliban has accused the Pakistan government of reneging on a peace deal and warned that the military operation will result in an upsurge of revenge attacks.
The area's most important and senior cleric, Sufi Mohammad, was talking exclusively to Sky News from a secret location in Swat.
It is the first time the Taliban's influential religious leadership has commented since the military offensive began.
Mohammad is a recluse who does not appear on camera or deal with the media.
But speaking by telephone from Swat through a spokesman, Amir Izzit Khan, Mohammad told me: "The peace deal has been broken by the government.
"Even in Jammu and Kashmir (the disputed territory claimed by both Pakistan and India) the Indian government does not use bombs against its own people.
"The government is trying to keep a foreign power happy by killing its own people. They are taking the dollars and filling their pockets and just trying to please others by killing their own citizens."
Sufi Mohammad, 78, was released from jail by the provincial government last year in the hope he might be able to persuade the Taliban to lay down their arms.
He has led a movement demanding the enforcement of Sharia Law for three decades.
He signed the controversial truce with the Pakistani government more than three months ago in return for the Taliban being allowed to have religious law in Swat.
But he raised alarm recently when he called the entire Pakistani political structure "un-Islamic" and said democracy was a system of infidels introduced by British colonists.
He wields enormous influence and power within Swat and his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah is the leader of the Swat Taliban fighting wing.
This morning, army helicopters dropped Pakistani commandoes into a Taliban stronghold in Swat Valley for the first time since launching their military operation more than a week ago.
Security forces say the area of Peochar and Gutpushar, which is a mountainous area in northern Swat, is the headquarters and hideout of Maulauna Fazlullah and his supporters.
The security forces believe Fazlullah ran terror training camps in this area.
The United Nations is planning to airlift food and emergency supplies to the tens of thousands of people who have fled the fighting.
There are an estimated one million people who are on the move and now homeless - the biggest mass movement of people since partition more than 60 years ago.
Pakistan Swat Valley: Taliban Warns Of Revenge Attacks Over Military Operation | World News | Sky News
