An Accord in Pakistan Is Scrapped by Militants

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A powerful Taliban faction in a northwestern tribal region has said it is withdrawing from a peace deal with the government to protest continuing strikes by American drones, confronting the Pakistani military with a possible two-front campaign against militants, according to Pakistani news reports on Tuesday.
The Taliban faction, led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, operates in the mountainous North Waziristan area along the border with Afghanistan.

It struck a peace deal with the authorities in February 2008, but Mr. Gul Bahadur said the truce was no longer operative. The Taliban announcement on Monday came as American reinforcements were moving into Afghanistan. Taliban fighters there have traditionally relied on havens in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions.

One day before the announcement, as many as 150 militants attacked a Pakistani military convoy about 22 miles west of Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan. At least 30 soldiers — the Taliban claimed 60 — were believed to have been killed in the ambush, which pointed to the army’s vulnerability in the area.

Separately, The Associated Press reported that four people were killed in southwestern Pakistan on Tuesday when a car bomber attacked trucks taking supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.

The end of the peace deal came as the Pakistani military prepared for an offensive against another Taliban group, led by Baitullah Mehsud, in neighboring South Waziristan.

Mr. Mehsud is widely depicted as the main leader of the Taliban in Pakistan and has claimed responsibility for a string of deadly bombings. The Pakistani authorities had been hoping to deny Mr. Mehsud support from North Waziristan, but Mr. Gul Bahadur’s decision has significantly expanded the theater of conflict.

Ahmadullah Ahmadi, a spokesman for Mr. Gul Bahadur, was quoted by Pakistani news organizations as saying that guerrilla attacks would be made against the Pakistani military unless drone attacks were stopped and government troops were pulled out of North Waziristan.

“We will attack forces everywhere in Waziristan unless the government fulfills these two demands,” Mr. Ahmadi told Dawn, Pakistan’s most prestigious English-language daily newspaper. Mr. Ahmadi accused the government of allowing the United States to carry out drone attacks in the region.

Mr. Gul Bahadur says that more than 50 drone strikes since the peace deal have killed hundreds of people, including women and children.

After the attack on the military convoy on Sunday, military vehicles lay wrecked and destroyed around the bodies of soldiers. Under the 2008 peace agreement, militants agreed not to attack security forces or establish a parallel administration. But the peace was tenuous and strained by mutual distrust.

The truce came after the government offered major concessions, like dismantling military checkpoints, releasing detained militants and compensating them and other tribesmen for their losses suffered during the military operation, Pakistani news organizations reported.

In return, elders of the Utman Zai tribe, which inhabits the area, had assured the government that there would be no cross-border movement and that foreigners would not be allowed to take refuge.