Pakistan on alert after Taliban warning

Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad | Published: July 01, 2008 00:00:00 | Updated: February 01, 2018 00:00:00

and Jon Boone in Kabul

FT Syndication Service

Pakistan stepped up security around airports, government buildings and diplomatic missions last Sunday after Islamic militants warned of reprisals for a military campaign by up to 20,000 troops targeting Taliban strongholds around Peshawar, the main northern city.

Baitullah Mehsud, a hardline Islamic militant linked to al-Qaeda and the Taliban, broke off all peace initiatives in Pakistan's northern belt along the Afghan border.

"The peace process is dead and buried. Baitullah Mehsud has warned of a major retaliation," a senior Pakistani government official told the Financial Times.

Security officials warned of the danger of suicide attacks - increasingly used in the past year by Islamic militants, including those backed by Mr Mehsud.

Last Saturday, tanks backed by heavy artillery, infantry and special troops, seized control of an enclave outside Peshawar used by militants to travel to and from Afghanistan. At least three other locations linked to the Taliban were also attacked and destroyed.

Pakistani intelligence officials said last week there was an imminent threat of the Taliban taking over Peshawar.

Meanwhile Afghanistan is reeling from the most violent month since the Taliban regime was toppled in 2001.

With fighting between the Taliban and security forces affecting half a dozen provinces in both the volatile east and south and the generally more peaceful west, analysts warn it is unlikely a multi-billion-dollar effort to stabilise the country will succeed in the near future.

A western security expert, who was unable to speak on the record, said that last May had a higher number of incidents than last year's peak in July.

"We hit the peak two months early. The data doesn't lie, we are consistently trending upwards. It is going to be a very unpleasant summer because the Taliban capacity in the south has been underestimated."

There have been more than 2,000 deaths this year.

In the last seven days there have been three reported Taliban attacks on international forces, and on construction workers and security guards. Roadside bombs have killed a policeman and one British soldier.

Violence in the south accounts for much of the increase, but a rise in suicide attacks in the west suggests the Taliban are trying to spread insecurity.

A report last Friday by the US Department of Defense warned that troubles in the country had "coalesced into a resilient insurgency", and that the Taliban was likely to "maintain or even increase the scope and pace of its terrorist attacks and bombings in 2008".