Taliban Violate Swat Valley Truce...That Didn't Take Long

On Sunday, on two different occasions, the Taliban violated the truce and peace agreements that have been established in the Swat Valley region of NW Pakistan. Here's some of the details from the report over at The Long War Journal:

The Swat Taliban violated the ceasefire with the Pakistani military twice on Sunday, prompting protests from the local government.
In the Kambar region of Swat, the Taliban abducted a district commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and four of his troops, Geo News reported. In the Kabal region, Taliban forces attacked a military vehicle transporting sick troops.
The military did not respond to either incident, except for filing a complaint. A "protest has been registered before the concerned authorities that have been asked to bar extremists from such attacks in the future," according to Geo News.
The Taliban and the government agreed to an indefinite ceasefire as the peace agreement, know as the Malakand Accord, is negotiated. The peace agreement, if signed, would put an end to the brutal fighting in Swat, which began in 2007 and resulted in the Taliban taking total control over the district.

Not long after these controversial peace agreements were signed by the Taliban and the Pakistani government, I blogged about how this would never stand up as it is the nature of the Taliban to be violent - that it would be like you and me giving up breathing. And now we see it literally only took days for my prediction to come true.

Well, my next prediction will be that the Taliban will continue these outbreaks of violence and violations of the agreement and within one month, the Swat Valley will once again become a battleground. And I'm very confident in that prediction.

Taliban violates Swat truce

The Swat Taliban violated the ceasefire with the Pakistani military twice on Sunday, prompting protests from the local government.
In the Kambar region of Swat, the Taliban abducted a district commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps and four of his troops, Geo News reported. In the Kabal region, Taliban forces attacked a military vehicle transporting sick troops.
The military did not respond to either incident, except for filing a complaint. A "protest has been registered before the concerned authorities that have been asked to bar extremists from such attacks in the future," according to Geo News.
The Taliban and the government agreed to an indefinite ceasefire as the peace agreement, know as the Malakand Accord, is negotiated. The peace agreement, if signed, would put an end to the brutal fighting in Swat, which began in 2007 and resulted in the Taliban taking total control over the district.
The agreement calls for the military to halt operations and return to barracks in exchange for the implementation of sharia in the districts of Malakand, Swat, Shangla, Buner, Dir, Chitral, and Kohistan. The Taliban have demanded that its prisoners be released and an amnesty granted for its members. A similar peace agreement failed in 2008.
The Taliban have violated the ceasefire several times since it was implemented in late February. The most prominent case took place just days after the ceasefire took effect. The Taliban captured the district coordinating officer for Swat and six of his Frontier Corps Guards. A Taliban spokesman said he was a "guest" who was detained to "discuss some issues." The government freed several Taliban prisoners to secure their release.
As the Taliban violate the ceasefire, Sufi Mohammed, the radical cleric who served as the intermediary between the government and the Taliban, demanded sharia, or Islamic law to be implemented by March 15. Sufi threatened to launch protests if the demand was not met. Sufi also provided a list of Taliban prisoners to be released.
The government quickly agreed to Sufi's demand to implement sharia by mid-March, and also caved on his demand to oversee the appointment of judges for the sharia courts. The government said Taliban prisoners "would be released in phases after scrutiny by the government," Dawn reported.