This Article is From May 05, 2009

Is the SWAT peace deal dead?

Is the SWAT peace deal dead?

AFP image

Islamabad: Despite army action in Dir and Buner, SWAT was where the tenuous peace deal was still working. But now it is clearly in tatters.

Over the last few days, a boys' school has been attacked, girls had to be rescued from a school in dagger, and government officials have been beheaded as Taliban militants give the peace deal, what looks like a final burial.

"All we say is that maintaining peace in the area will be the government's responsibility and we cannot be held responsible," said Ameer Izzat, Taliban spokesman.

But even that may not be enough. The Taliban are now saying that sharia courts set up by the frontier government over the weekend are not acceptable to them.

As the Pakistan government struggles to deal with the fallout of this war, the government is under increasing pressure from ordinary Pakistanis to act more decisively against the Taliban.

A desperate and novel protest by ordinary Pakistanis terrified of the spiralling war between the Pakistan government.

In Lahore and Karachi they hit the post office to mail a letter to Pakistan's leadership asking them not to appease the Taliban with peace deals like the one that seems to be backfiring in SWAT.
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