Internally displaced Pakistani tribal civilians, fleeing from military operations against Taliban militants in North Waziristan, arrive in Bannu, a town on the edge of Pakistan’s tribal belt of Waziristan yesterday.

Agencies/Islamabad

A Pakistani cleric with close ties to the Taliban said yesterday he would no longer act as a government-backed peace broker with the militants after airstrikes killed 40 people in a tribal district.

Sami ul-Haq, who heads the hardline Dar-ul-Uloom Haqqania seminary and is often referred to as the “Father of the Taliban”, was given the task of initiating peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban in December by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif’s government announced its talks policy in September and began making preliminary contact with the Taliban’s leadership, but the initiative ended after a US drone strike killed then-Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in November. 

“The government does not seem serious and concerned. I had requested them to avoid a military operation and use of force but yesterday it started bombing in North Waziristan and tribal areas,” Haq, who is also chief of his own faction of the religious Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI-S) party, said in a statement sent to AFP.

The air strikes in the North Waziristan and Khyber tribal regions on Tuesday were retaliation for two major Taliban attacks on military targets in as many days.

But Haq, whose seminary has awarded Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Omar an honorary doctorate, said more fighting was not the answer.

“Both sides (Taliban and government) are in a state of war. Innocent citizens and soldiers are dying,” he said in the statement. “A military operation is not the answer: we should instead put all our passion into the process of talks.

“In such a situation I want to separate myself from this bloody tragedy,” he added.

Haq said Sharif sought his help in initiating peace talks and he received positive signals after contacting the Taliban leadership, but “the lack of seriousness on behalf of the government” forced him to quit the process.

Haq also sent AFP a copy of a letter he wrote to Sharif, complaining that multiple calls and efforts to reach the premier had gone unanswered.

The TTP have been waging a bloody campaign of gun and bomb attacks against the Pakistani state since 2007, often on military targets.

The two high-profile attacks on Sunday and Monday left at least 39 dead, marking a bloody return for the militants after a period of relative quiet following Mehsud’s death and the installation of hardline cleric Maulana Fazlullah as his replacement.

Meanwhile, a senior security source said yesterday that three Germans were among the people killed when Pakistani jets and helicopters bombarded suspected Taliban hideouts in a northwestern tribal district, .

“Most of (the) terrorists killed are foreign fighters including 33 Uzbeks and three Germans,” the source said.

Uzbeks, many affiliated with the Al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, make up one of the largest groups of foreign fighters in Pakistan’s tribal northwest.

There was no immediate confirmation from the countries concerned. Independent verification of casualties was not possible because media and aid workers are not allowed to visit the area.

The source added that Wali Mohamed, a Pakistani Taliban commander and trainer of suicide bombers, was among the dead. This was confirmed by a senior militant source.