Pakistan: Taliban militants retreat

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Source: CCTV.com | 04-25-2009 09:24

Taliban militants are pulling out of a Pakistan district they had seized, just 100 kilometers west of the capital of Islamabad. This came after the government warned it would use force to evict them.

Pakistani Taliban members travel in a van as they leave  Buner, northwestern Pakistan on Friday, April 24, 2009. Taliban militants who had seized a district just 60 miles  (100 kilometers) from Pakistan's capital began pulling out Friday after the government warned 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 U.S.  government worries has created a haven for allies of  al-Qaida.(AP Photo/Naveed Ali)

Dozens of Taliban militants emerged on Friday from a high-walled villa in Buner, a rural area to the west of Pakistan's capital of Islamabad. TV images showed the militants' withdrawal from Buner and heading to the militant-held Swat Valley near the Afghan border.

According to a local government administrator in the region, the militants' withdrawal from Buner was due to Friday's mediation by a hard-line cleric. The Taliban were persuaded to return to the Swat area in the northwestern part of Pakistan.

The government agreed in February to impose Islamic law in Swat and its surrounding areas in return for a cease-fire. This halted nearly two years of bloody fighting between militants and Pakistani security forces.