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PML (N) unhappy over offensive

— Photo: AP

Pile of rubble: A Pakistani tribal visits a house destroyed in Qambarkhel, in Pakistan’s Khyber Agency, on Monday.

ISLAMABAD: In a sign of political trouble for the government’s policy to launch “selective” military operations against militant groups, the Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), a member of the ruling coalition, has decided to position itself against the offensive currently ongoing in the tribal areas near Peshawar.

Chaudhary Nisar Ali Khan, a leader of the party, said in Lahore on Monday the PML(N) was not taken into confidence on the operations.

“What the country needs at this time is peace, not the use of force against its own people,” said Mr. Khan. “If force has to be used, it cannot be decided by one person or one party. Now we have an elected Parliament, and such action should not have been taken before discussing it in Parliament.”

Seven people were killed in an explosion in the house of a militant leader in the Khyber agency on Monday, the first major casualties during the three-day-old operations against militant groups.

Before this, one person belonging to the militant group Lashkar-i-Islam was killed on Saturday, the first day of an offensive by the Frontier Corps paramilitaries that has so far met with little resistance.

Haji Namdar, who heads a group called the Protection of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, accused the Pakistan government or NATO forces of carrying out a missile strike on his house in Bara in the Khyber agency. He was not present in the compound at the time but seven members of his group were killed. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a drone before the explosion.

But officials denied a missile attack and said the explosion was caused by materials stored in the house.

Speaking to Dawn News television, a spokesman for the Tehreek-i-Taliban, an umbrella group headed by the South Waziristan-based Taliban commander Beithullah Mehsud, vowed to avenge the alleged missile attack.

In the capital, residents who have been on edge for fear of a violent backlash by militants, panicked when two loud explosions were heard in Rawalpindi around noon, but the Air Force clarified it was a sonic boom caused by its aircraft crossing the sound barrier.

Notwithstanding the apparent public support for the operations — going by reports in the local media, residents of Peshawar are relieved that the government took action to dismantle the groups that have been terrorising them — the Jamat-i-Islami condemned the military operations. JI leader Qazi Hussain Ahmed told a press conference that there was no threat to Peshawar from the Taliban, and it had all been made up by the government as a pretext to launch military operations.

The political positioning came as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher arrived in Pakistan along with a congressional delegation.

An official release said Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told Mr. Boucher that Pakistan was “fighting terrorism and extremism in its own national interest” and not to serve the objectives of another country.

He said Pakistan, in consultation with the coalition partners, had adopted a three-pronged strategy to deal with terrorism by initiating political dialogue with militants who had laid down arms and joined mainstream political activity, accelerating the pace of economic development and reserving the right to use force if agreements are violated.

“We will however never negotiate with militants nor allow foreigners to use our soil against another country,” he said.

The federal government, which had earlier said it would bring militants back into the fold through peace talks, decided to launch the operations after reports that Khyber-based “criminal groups” such as the Lashkar-i-Islam and Ansar-ul-Islam were poised to take over Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Province.

Mangal Bagh, head of the Lashkar-i-Islam, was reported telling his followers not to offer any resistance to troops, whom he described as “my brothers”.

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