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Peace offer to pro-Taliban leader

Nirupama Subramanian

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Government is attempting to building bridges with a pro-Taliban commander linked by intelligence officials to the recent suicide bombings, and who President Pervez Musharraf declared his Government wants to eliminate.

Newspapers here reported that at the instance of the South Waziristan Political Agent, the top Government representative in the tribal area, a delegation of tribal elders met Baithullah Mehsud earlier this week.

At a press conference last week, Gen. Musharraf told journalists that if they knew where Mr. Mehsud was, and were visiting him for interviews, they should also share information about his whereabouts to the security forces so that they could track him down and take him out.

Making the point that the Taliban leadership was entirely based in Afghanistan, Gen. Musharraf said "the only person of importance [in the Taliban] in Pakistan is Baithullah Mehsud."

The militant leader has become a household name after he declared he would seek revenge for a military air strike on January 16 on an alleged militant camp in South Waziristan that killed 20 persons.

Pakistan has been shaken by a string of suicide bombings since then, and investigators linked them to Mr. Mehsud and his threat, though never officially.

Led by a Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal parliamentarian of Pakistan's Senate or Upper House, a team of 21 tribal elders held a meeting with Mr. Mehsud on Wednesday. It reported that Mr. Mehsud pleaded his innocence with regard to the bombings.

The Government had signed a peace accord with Mr. Mehsud in February 2005. According to the delegation, Mr. Mehsud wants to keep it "intact". According to Rahimullah Yusufzai, a senior journalist who writes on Pashtun affairs, the meeting between the tribal elders and Mr. Mehsud showed the Government still wanted to work with him. When contacted for an explanation of how the peace moves tied up with the President's comments about him last week, military spokesman Major General Shaukat Sultan declined comment.

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