And “attempting to reorganize insurgents.”
The truce is long dead, but now the region is stuck with the implementation of Sharia that occurred as a result of the truce. Sufi Muhammad got what he wanted. “Cleric who negotiated Taliban-Pakistan peace deal is arrested,” by Zulfiqar Ali and Alex Rodriguez for the Los Angeles Times, July 27:
Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan, and Peshawar, Pakistan — Pakistani police on Sunday arrested Sufi Mohammed, the Taliban-aligned cleric responsible for brokering a controversial peace deal between Swat Valley militants and the government this year. That deal eventually broke down, leading to the ongoing military offensive against Taliban fighters.
Mohammed is the father-in-law of Maulana Qazi Fazlullah, the Taliban leader who fought Pakistani troops for two years before wresting control of the Swat Valley, once a tourist mecca.
Mohammed negotiated a peace deal with the government in February that called for Fazlullah’s fighters to lay down their arms in exchange for the imposition of Sharia, or Islamic law, in the region. In the spring, Taliban militants in Swat reneged on the truce and moved into the neighboring district of Buner, just 60 miles from the nation’s capital, Islamabad.
Fazlullah’s actions prompted Pakistani leaders to mount an all-out assault on militants in Swat and surrounding regions, a move that forced the exodus of nearly 2 million civilians from the conflict zone.
Mohammed was arrested without incident at a relative’s house near Peshawar, where he had been staying since July 6, authorities said.
Mohammed was being charged with continuing to encourage terrorism and attempting to reorganize insurgents.
Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for North-West Frontier Province, which includes the Swat Valley, said Mohammed recently had convened organizing meetings in Peshawar despite the Pakistani government’s ban on his group, the Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law.
“He is responsible for militancy and violence, and he will be brought to justice,” Hussain said at a news conference in Peshawar. “He embarked on reorganizing his group and convened meetings . . . in Peshawar, which is intolerable for the government.”…