ISLAMABAD, Pakistan ? Pushing deeper into Pakistan, Taliban militants have established effective control of a strategically important district just 70 miles from the capital, Islamabad, officials and residents said Wednesday.
The fall of the district, Buner, did not mean that the Taliban could imminently threaten Islamabad. But it was another indication of the gathering strength of the insurgency and it raised new alarm about the ability of the government to fend off an unrelenting Taliban advance toward the heart of Pakistan.
Buner, home to about one million people, is a gateway to a major Pakistani city, Mardan, the second largest in North-West Frontier Province, after Peshawar.
?They take over Buner, then they roll into Mardan and that?s the end of the game,? a senior law enforcement official in North-West Frontier Province said. He asked that his name be withheld because was not authorized to speak to the news media.
The Taliban had pushed into the district from the neighboring Swat Valley, where the Pakistani Army agreed to a truce in mid-February and remains in its barracks.
On Wednesday heavily armed Taliban militants were patrolling villages, and the local police had retreated to their station houses in much of Buner, officials and residents said.
The staff members of local nongovernmental organizations have been ordered to leave, and their offices have been looted, they said. Pakistani television news channels showed Taliban fighters triumphantly carrying office equipment out of the offices of the organizations.
?They are everywhere,? one resident of Daggar, Buner?s main city, said by telephone. ?There is no resistance.?
The Taliban advance has been building for weeks, with the assistance of sympathizers and even a local government official who was appointed on the recommendation of the Taliban, the senior official said.
It also comes 10 days after the government of President Asif Ali Zardari agreed to the imposition of Islamic law, or Shariah, in Swat, as part of the deal with the Taliban.
A local politician, Jamsher Khan, said that people were initially determined to resist the Taliban in Buner, but that they were discouraged by the deal the government struck with the Taliban in Swat.
?We felt stronger as long we thought the government was with us,? he said by telephone, ?but when the government showed weakness, we too stopped offering resistance to the Taliban.?
On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said she was concerned that Pakistan?s government was making too many concessions to the Taliban, emboldening the militants and allowing them to spread by giving in to their demands.
?I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists,? Mrs. Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Capitol Hill.
She added that the deterioration of security in nuclear-armed Pakistan ?poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world.?
A senior American official said Mrs. Clinton?s remarks were prompted in part by news of the Taliban takeover in Buner. The officials said that the further erosion of government authority in an area so close to the capital ought to stir concern not only in Pakistan but also among influential Pakistanis abroad.
The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, arrived in Islamabad on Wednesday for the second time in two weeks, reflecting the sense of alarm in the Obama administration. He was scheduled to meet with Pakistan?s top military and intelligence commanders.
The takeover of Buner (pronounced boo-NAIR) is particularly significant because the people there have tried in the past year to stand up to the Taliban by establishing small private armies to fight the militants. Last year when the militants encroached into Buner, killing policemen, the local people fought back and forced the militants out.
But with a beachhead in neighboring Swat, and a number of training camps for fresh recruits, the Taliban were able to carry out what amounted to an invasion of Buner.
?The training camps will provide waves of men coming into Buner,? the senior law enforcement official said.
The Taliban expansion into Buner has begun to raise alarm among the senior ranks of the Pakistani Army, said a Western official who was familiar with the Pakistani military.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/23/world/asia/23buner.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1&hpPakistan have sent troops, but it seems to be too little too late.
Topic: Pakistan - Taliban - Shariah Deal