Fight another day

ISLAMABAD

A few hours after gunship helicopters killed five terrorists in Bara area of Khyber Agency, Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar on Sunday announced that the government was halting airstrikes against the Taliban.
The announcement came after consultation with Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff General Raheel Sharif.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has long promoted negotiations over military operations as a way to end the ongoing crisis. His efforts gained speed this year when both sides announced negotiating teams held initial meetings.
The target of the Bara offensive, Mullah Tamanchey, had directed a deadly assault against a convoy carrying an anti-polio vaccination team and security forces on Saturday in which 12 people were killed.
Reciprocating Taliban’s attacks, gunship helicopters destroyed Ayubi Markaz of Mullah Tamanchey in Bara on Sunday, killing five suspected militants.
The gunship helicopters also targeted terrorist hideouts in Kalanga and surrounding areas and a number of them were destroyed.
Reportedly, the interior minister also talked to Taliban committee member Samiul Haq who is in Madina. Both the government and Taliban assigned committees are likely to meet in a few days.
“After the positive announcement yesterday by the Taliban, the government has decided to suspend the airstrikes which were continuing for the past few days,” the interior minister said in a statement.
The statement added, “The government and armed forces of Pakistan, however, reserve the right for a befitting response to any act of violence.”
On Saturday, the Taliban terrorists announced a month-long ceasefire aimed at resuming stalled peace talks with the government.
Their announcement was met with scepticism by analysts who said it may have been a tactic to allow the terrorists to regroup after they had taken heavy losses in airstrikes.
Dialogue between the government and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) was suspended after the terrorists killed 23 FC men on Afghan soil. The army responded with a series of airstrikes killing 100 terrorists.
The interior minister said, “The government considers the announcement of stopping of violent activities by Taliban a positive development.”
Earlier, a few hours after the attack on the anti-polio convoy, the Taliban had said they would observe a one-month ceasefire to try to revive peace talks that failed last month. It also called on other terrorist groups to observe the ceasefire.
A top cleric said they were open to restarting peace talks as long as the Taliban and its affiliates honored the ceasefire.
In recent weeks, speculation has been mounting that the army would launch a ground operation in North Waziristan, a tribal region along the border with Afghanistan.
North Waziristan has long been regarded as stronghold for Afghan Taliban factions, the affiliated Haqqani group, and al Qaeda, as well as the Pakistani Taliban.
US generals serving in Afghanistan have often complained that Pakistan, while fighting the Pakistani Taliban, has allowed other terrorist groups to have safe havens in its tribal regions.
Some analysts have speculated that the Pakistani Taliban’s offer of a ceasefire is aimed at stalling an operation in North Waziristan.