WANA, May 9: A top tribal militant warned on Sunday that he and his colleagues would again take up arms if the government violated the agreement reached with them at Shakai last month.
"We fully stand by the agreement, but if the government violates the Shakai accord we will be forced to take up arms," Nek Mohammed, one of the five tribal militants pardoned by the government under a deal last month, told Dawn.
His warning, coupled with an ultimatum on Sunday by the authorities in the South Waziristan region that tribes had less than 24 hours to facilitate registration of foreign militants, raised doubts whether the agreement reached at Shakai on April 24 would hold.
The government insists that the pardon granted to the five militants was in return for a pledge made by them that they would facilitate registration of foreign militants, believed to be in hundreds, by April 30.
After talks between militants and senior military officers, the government agreed to extend the deadline until May 10 - 12th extension since October. Nek Mohammed, a former Taliban commander, insisted that registration of foreign militants was not part of the agreement and accused Corps Commander Peshawar Lt-Gen Safdar Hussain of violating the agreement by announcing the April 30 deadline in this regard.
"Registration of foreign militants was never part of the agreement. The corps commander violated the agreement by setting a deadline," he said. "It is all written there on a piece of paper.
Let anybody come and prove that registration of foreigners was part of the agreement and we will abide by it. It was not part of the accord because there are no foreign militants here."
Maulana Abdul Malik, a parliamentarian from the tribal region and one of the guarantors and witnesses to the agreement, had earlier endorsed Nek Mohammed's statement and said that registration was not part of the agreement.
Nek Mohammed, 27, said: "There are no foreign militants here nor has anyone given shelter to them." "If the military launches an operation, this will be a violation of the agreement. We will fight to the last man. We have every right to defend ourselves," Nek Mohammed said.
"We will fight them until they come again and enter into another agreement with us," Nek Mohammed told the BBC Pushto Service later in the evening. However, official sources insisted that the tribal militant was still on board as far as they were considered.
They said that Nek Mohammed had given no indication that he would not comply with the terms of the agreement including registration of foreign militants. The sources said that Nek Mohammed himself had admitted to the authorities after the Shakai agreement that 27 foreign militants had laid down their lives to protect him during the March 16 operation in Kaloosha.
They said that Nek Mohammed had also admitted to the fact that Uzbek militant Tahir Yaldashev had been with him when the paramilitary forces opened fire at them at the start of the operation in Kaloosha. "How could he now deny that there are no foreign militants in the region," a source remarked.
"There were several things which were not part of the agreement but the government took the steps to assure them that it was sincere in talks. This whole agreement was based on the assumption that these people would help facilitate registration of foreign militants. How could this agreement now stand if they are denying something that formed the very basis of the agreement," said a source.
"We believe that foreign militants, including Tahir Yaldashev, are still hiding there," an official source said. Meanwhile, South Waziristan administrator Asmatullah Gandapur told a jirga of all nine sub-tribes of Ahmadzai Wazir that time was running out for them and they had less than 24 hours to get foreign militants registered.