Dawn
1 July
The interconnections between different militant groups operating in the Waziristan agencies is becoming increasingly apparent as the state edges closer to an armed confrontation with Baitullah Mehsud's network in South Waziristan Agency. The latest sign that the state is confronted with a hydra-headed militancy threat has come with the scrapping of a peace deal signed in mid-February 2008 with tribal elders in North Waziristan Agency.
The deal had been approved by a grand jirga of 286 elders of the Dawar and Wazir sub-tribes of the Utmanzai and, among other things, barred the Taliban from setting up a 'parallel government' and required that they not attack government and security forces personnel in the agency. The February 2008 peace deal was itself meant to revive and build on an earlier peace deal struck with a 'sympathetic' Taliban commander Hafiz Gul Bahadur in September 2006.