By Kamran Haider PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Feb 16 (Reuters) - Pakistan agreed on Monday to apply a system of Islamic law in Swat valley and other areas of the northwest to pacify a revolt, while a suspected U.S. missile strike on a Taliban nest near the Afghan border killed at least 26 people. The decision on Islamic justice is likely to draw criticism from the United States and other Western powers worried that appeasement will play into the hands of religious conservatives who sympathise with the Taliban and al Qaeda. But, the government fears that use of force to impose its will would only fuel an Islamist insurgency radiating out of tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, and believes compromise was the best option to restore order in Swat. [ID:nISL416970] "Those who adopted militancy, should move towards peace now the agreement has been reached," Amir Haider Khan Hoti, Chief Minister of North West Frontier Province, told a news conference after his government reached agreement with Islamists at a meeting in Peshawar. Taliban militants in Swat, once a tourist paradise, called a 10-day ceasefire the night before the talks, and in another gesture of goodwill on Saturday released a Chinese engineer kidnapped five months earlier. The U.S. envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, said on a trip to India that events in Swat showed the United States, Pakistan and India faced a common enemy. "For the first time in 60 years since independence your country and Pakistan, the U.S., all face an enemy that poses a direct threat to our leadership, our capitals and our people," he said. [ID:nSP415494] "I talked to people from Swat and they were frankly quite terrified," Holbrooke told reporters in New Delhi, where he was meeting India's foreign minister and top security officials after visiting Islamabad and Kabul last week. The uprising erupted in late 2007 in Swat, an alpine beauty spot favoured by honeymooners and trekkers alike, and militants now control the valley just 130 km (80 miles) northwest of the capital Islamabad. They have destroyed more than 200 girls schools in a campaign against female education, and tens of thousands of people have fled their homes to escape the violence. Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari had already given his agreement in principle for the NWFP government to make this concession to the Islamists but will only sign off on it once he is sure that peace has been established, officials said. While Islamists saw the government's move as a victory, Information Minister Sheree Rehman said the principal changes for the people of Swat would be that they could have speedy justice and an appellate bench would be established in Peshawar. The laws that will be applied were written into the Pakistani constitution after an uprising in Swat in the 1990s, but they were never implemented, Rehman said. Officials said the government was neither setting up new courts or appointing Islamic scholars, and existing judges would carry on in their role. Analysts said the courts were unlikely to hand down sentences like those meted out by the Taliban in Pakistani tribal areas and Swat, where thieves hands were chopped off. "SWAT TODAY, PAKISTAN TOMORROW" Religious conservatives in Swat have long fought for sharia to replace Pakistan's secular laws, which came into force after the former princely state was absorbed into the Pakistani federation in 1969. Monday's agreement was reached with Maulana Sufi Mohammad, who led the revolt in the early 1990s. Mohammad was later imprisoned after leading thousands of fighters in a vain attempt to stop U.S.-backed forces from ousting the Taliban from power in Afghanistan in 2001. A spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella group for various Taliban factions, said the agreement signed by Mohammad was acceptable, and vowed the struggle would continue until sharia, or Islamic law, was applied across Pakistan. The government hopes that by compromising with militants who have laid down their arms it will be able to isolate hardliners who have forged ties with the Taliban and al Qaeda. To the government's chagrin the new U.S. administration has continued with missile attacks launched by drone aircraft on militant targets in Pakistani territory, despite warnings that it results increased support for the militants. [ID:nISL263908] The attack on Monday was the fourth since President Barack Obama was sworn in late last month, but it was the first in Kurram tribal agency, indicating a wider theatre of operations. An intelligence official in the area told Reuters that Taliban fighters were meeting at an old schoolhouse in a mountainous region called Sarpul, on the outskirts of Baggan village, when the missiles struck, but it was unknown if any commanders of consequence were killed. On Saturday another missile strike in the South Waziristan tribal region killed at least 25 mostly Central Asian fighters believed to have al Qaeda links. Controversy over the drone attacks was stirred last week by U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, who said U.S. drone aircraft were being flown from bases inside Pakistan. Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi denied this on Sunday. (Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Delegation members of Pakistani Islamist leader Soofi Mohammad from the Swat valley attempt to shield their faces from the media as they attend a meeting with government officials, political and religious ...
