Pakistan-Taliban tension (click for full story)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Pakistani paramilitary forces rushing to protect government buildings and bridges in a Taliban-infiltrated district just 60 miles from the capital were met with gunfire Thursday that killed one police officer, authorities said.

It was not immediately clear if the gunmen were Taliban militants, but the clash in Buner district is likely to heighten concern about the viability of a government-backed peace deal with the Taliban in northwest Pakistan.

The deal imposes Islamic law in a large segment of the country's northwest in exchange for peace with Taliban militants in the neighboring Swat Valley.

In recent days, the valley's militants have entered Buner in large numbers — establishing checkpoints, patrolling roads and spreading fear. Their movement has bolstered critics' claims that the deal would merely embolden the militants to spread their reign to other parts of the province bordering Afghanistan.

The U.S. has become one of the deal's foremost critics.

"I think the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told lawmakers in a hearing Wednesday in Washington. But on Thursday she added that she thought Islamabad was beginning to recognize the severity of the threat posed by militants.

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Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the Pakistan Army's chief spokesman, insisted the situation in Buner was not as dire as some have portrayed — saying militants were in control of less than 25 percent of the district, mostly its north.

"We are fully aware of the situation," Abbas said. "The other side has been informed to move these people out of this area."

However, a meeting between tribal elders and the Taliban on Thursday in Daggar, Buner's main town, ended without any indication that the Taliban would withdraw.

Police and government officials in Buner appear to have either fled or are keeping a low profile, and there was no sign of the Frontier Constabulary forces in the town.

Two Taliban representatives declined to comment after the meeting, driving away in a pickup truck full of gun-toting associates. However, a Taliban leader who goes by the name Commander Khalil said the militants had agreed to stop patrolling in Buner, though they would still keep armed guards in their vehicles.

"We are here peacefully preaching for Sharia. We don't want to fight," Khalil told an AP reporter by phone.

According to officials, the Taliban have established a base in the village of Sultanwas and set up positions in the nearby hills. Residents say they have been broadcasting sermons by radio about Islam and warning barbers to stop shaving men's beards.


Supporters say the deal takes away the militants' main rallying call for Islamic law and will let the government gradually reassert control — a theory yet to be seriously tested.

Also Thursday, dozens of militants armed with guns and gasoline bombs attacked a truck terminal near Peshawar, also in northwest Pakistan, burning five tanker trucks carrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan, said Abdul Khan, a local police official.

Security guards fled, and the assailants escaped before police arrived, Khan said.

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