Pakistan’s leading militants have called on fighters to honour an agreement not to attack the Pakistani military in the most important sanctuary for the Taliban and al Qaeda along the Afghan border, The Washington Post said in a report on Sunday.
The operational chief of the Haqqani network, Sirajuddin Haqqani, is part of the five-member leadership council that distributed a pamphlet on Saturday ordering militants not to stage rocket or bomb attacks in North Waziristan, said the report. “In North Waziristan, we are all in agreement with the Pakistani government, so we are all bound to honour this agreement and nobody is allowed to violate it,” the pamphlet was quoted as saying. Anyone who violated the agreement “will be dealt with as a culprit”, it said. The military, which has never publicly acknowledged a peace agreement with militants in North Waziristan, did not immediately respond to request for comment, said the Post. The military has targeted militant bases in other tribal areas along the border, and the pamphlet appeared to be an attempt by the militants to preserve North Waziristan as a sanctuary from such an offensive, said the report.
There have been several rocket and bomb attacks against the military in North Waziristan since the council was formed in early January. The military has allegedly struck peace agreements in the past with two other members of the council, but it has never explicitly acknowledged those pacts, the paper added.
