Taleban militants who had seized a district just 100 kilometers from Pakistan's capital began pulling out Friday after the government warned that it would use force to evict them. The withdrawal from Buner, if completed, eliminates the most immediate threat to a peace agreement in the neighboring militant-held Swat Valley that the US government worries has created a haven for allies of Al-Qaeda. But is unlikely to quell fears that Islamabad is failing to deal forcefully with militants slowly expanding into the heart of the nuclear-armed country from lawless areas close to the Afghan order. Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, in a statement coinciding with the Taleban's announcement of its withdrawal, said that the military was ready for the threat posed by insurgents. He said the military's decision not to deploy in the militant-infested area was tactical. “The operational pause, meant to give the reconciliatory forces a chance, must not be taken for a concession to the militants,” a military statement quoted Kayani as saying at a meeting in the army's General Headquarters. TV images showed dozens of militants emerging on Friday from a high-walled villa that served as their headquarters in Buner, a rural area in the foothills of the Karakoram mountains. The men, most of them masked with black scarves and carrying automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, clambered into several pickup trucks and minibuses before driving away. Syed Mohammed Javed, the top government administrator in the region, said a hard-line cleric who helped mediate the disputed peace deal persuaded the Taleban to return to Swat in a meeting on Friday. “We told them that we have a deal, we have a peace agreement. We told them not to become a tool in the hands of someone aiming at sabotaging the peace in the region,” Javed told The Associated Press.
