New Taliban war crimes in Swat

Reuters/NY Times:

Pakistani Taliban have beheaded two government officials in the northwestern Swat Valley in revenge for the killing of two insurgent commanders by security forces, a militant spokesman said on Sunday.

Authorities struck a peace deal in February aimed at ending militant violence in the former tourist valley of Swat but the militants have refused to disarm and pushed out of the valley into neighboring districts.

The Pakistani Taliban aggression raised alarm in the United States and in Islamabad, and a week ago the security forces launched an offensive to expel militants from two of Swat's neighboring districts.

The two government officials were kidnapped and beheaded on Saturday evening in Khuwaza Kheil, a village 18 km (10 miles) north of the valley's main town of Mingora, said town police chief Danishwar Khan.

Their bodies were dumped beside a road.

"They beheaded the officers. We've sent an ambulance to pick up the bodies," Khan said.

Militant spokesman Muslim Khan said the beheadings were revenge for the killing of two low-level Taliban commanders earlier on Saturday.

...

What the Taliban did is clearly a war crime yet they are not tarnished by that title being placed on their way of war. Why? It will be up to government media spokesman to make the charge, because the media is apparently reluctant to state the obvious on their own.

The Pakistan government is unlikely to make the statement either. They were busy setting up barbaric Islamic courts in Northwest Frontier Province.

...

"With the establishment of Darul Qaza [appellate court], the foremost demand of all sides has been met. ... There is no justification for Taliban to be up in arms," Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain of the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), told reporters in Peshawar on Saturday, a day after a meeting with a hard-line cleric mediating the peace talks with the Taliban.

"From now onwards anyone found having arms, including Taliban, would be considered as rebel and even holding of their funeral would be un-Islamic," Mr. Hussain said.

A spokesman for the Taliban mediators, however, said the groups were not consulted on the choice of judges of the new court.

...

The government still seems naive about Taliban objectives. It also seems careless about turning over sovereignty to radicals who will make the lives of other citizens miserable with the implementation of their weird religious beliefs.

CBS reports that the Taliban refuse to disarm. That should give the government reason enough to go in and disarm them and restore the rule of law rather than the Taliban's rule of religious fiat.