Pakistan frees militant who fought U.S. in Aghanistan
Maulana Sufi Mohammed is reportedly in poor health. His release may indicate a new conciliatory approach by Pakistan's government.
PESHAWAR, PAKISTAN — Pakistan today freed the founder of a militant organization whose fighters battled U.S. troops in Afghanistan after the American-led invasion in 2001.
The release of Maulana Sufi Mohammed, who local officials in the frontier city of Peshawar said was freed on grounds of ill health, could be an indicator that Pakistan's new government will strike a more conciliatory tone than the previous administration toward Islamic militants.
The ruling coalition that assumed power last month after February parliamentary elections had already said it was willing to negotiate with militants who laid down their arms. The coalition is dominated by two main opposition parties that outpolled the party of U.S.-backed President Pervez Musharraf.
Mohammed is the founder of the Movement for the Enforcement of the Laws of Muhammad, or Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, which advocates a system of Islamic justice for Pakistan. He is also the father-in-law of Maulana Qazi Fazlullah, a fugitive militant leader whose followers last year set up what amounted to a shadow government in the Swat Valley, a picturesque former tourist destination in northwest Pakistan.
Pakistani troops have since driven Fazlullah's followers into the mountains, but officials in North-West Frontier Province said Mohammed's release was linked to the striking of a truce to prevent Fazlullah's fighters from reclaiming their grip on towns and cities in Swat. Mohammed had been jailed since 2002, when he returned to Pakistan from Afghanistan, but last year was transferred to a hospital in Peshawar because of a variety of reported health complications.
Hospital officials said that soon after the order to free him was issued, men who appeared to be followers of Fazlullah turned up to escort him to an undisclosed destination.
The movement founded by Mohammed, which was revitalized under his son-in-law, advocates an austere, Taliban-style brand of Islam. Under it, education of girls is discouraged, women must veil themselves and men are required to wear beards.
Fazlullah also ordered residents of the Swat Valley to destroy their TV sets because television programs were decreed to be immoral entertainment. Thousands complied.
The militant contingent that Mohammed fielded in Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban was not an effective fighting force. Most of his men were killed or captured.
