ARMED Taliban defied a government curfew and patrolled the main town in Pakistan's Swat district after rejecting an Islamic appeals court set up under a peace deal, witnesses said Monday.

The government of North West Frontier Province said Saturday that an Islamic appellate court had been created to serve the three million people who live in Malakand, which includes Swat, under a deal to end a Taliban-led insurgency.

But a Taliban spokesman rejected the new court, charging it had been created without adequate consultation, and condemned an ongoing military assault against Taliban fighters holed up in other districts of Malakand.

Authorities imposed a curfew from 6:00 pm to 9:00 am in Mingora, the main town in Swat, on Sunday for the first time since signing the February deal with pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad to try to end nearly two years of violence.

"We had concerns about the law and order situation, that is why the curfew was imposed,'' the head of the local administration, Khushhal Khan, told AFP.

Residents said they saw armed Taliban patrolling the main roads in Mingora late Sunday despite the curfew.

"It is the first time that Taliban have again started armed patrolling in Mingora,'' one resident told AFP, requesting anonymity.

"Do not give my name because the Taliban will find me and kill me,'' the frightened resident said.

"Once again fear is gripping the entire town.''

Another resident said Taliban militants were "again taking up positions on top of buildings'' in Mingora.

Security officials and police declined to comment when asked whether armed Taliban were patrolling in Mingora.

Pakistan in February agreed to let religious hardliners enforce Islamic law in Swat, once a popular ski resort, and the rest of Malakand in a bid to end the bloody Taliban uprising.

But instead of disarming as required under the deal, armed Taliban pushed further towards the capital Islamabad, taking over large swathes of other Malakand districts Lower Dir and Buner - and prompting the latest offensive.

Pakistan's army announced Sunday that 80 militants have been killed so far in its offensive against the Taliban in Buner.

...After the government and the Taliban signed an accord that mandated the establishment of the Islamic legal code in the Swat Valley, the Pakistani Taliban started pushing out of the area into neighboring districts.  At the government's behest, the army started pushing back.

Pakistani newspaper columnist and National Assembly member Ayaz Amir says the Taliban blundered.

"There was a certain kind of a tipping point after the so-called Swat Accord.  It was when the Swat Taliban were seen to be overreaching themselves," said Ayaz Amir. "And instead of resting on their laurels, they were trying to extend their influence.  And one or two speeches by Maulana Sufi Mohammad that democracy is outside Islam, the courts are outside the pale of Islam - that, and the advance of the Taliban into the district of Buner."

   
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/06/08/2592519.htm?section=justin
From ABC, 8 Jun. 09

VILLAGERS BATTLE TALIBAN IN NORTH-WEST PAKISTAN

Pakistani villagers seeking revenge for a deadly mosque bombing killed three more suspected Taliban insurgents Monday in a third day of vigilante violence, police and officials said.
The spontaneous militia took up arms on Saturday and killed six suspected militants in Upper Dir district, a day after 38 people were killed in a suicide blast at a mosque in the district's village of Hayagai Sharqai.
The heavily armed tribal militia -- known as a lashkar -- stormed three villages and torched up to 20 houses in an area near north-western Swat valley where the military is locked in a six-week anti-Taliban offensive.
"Firing between the lashkar and militants is continuing at several places," district police chief Mohammad Ejaz Khan told AFP on Monday.
"There are more than 200 Taliban taking part in fighting, and three more Taliban were killed on Monday, so the total toll is nine."
Local officials said that up to 1,200 villagers carrying small arms and kalashnikovs have taken up positions at Shatkas and Ghazigi hamlets, some 20 kilometres (12 miles) east of Upper Dir's main town.
"Taliban have lost the local support in the area and are now only firing back to move away," a local security official told AFP.
"Taliban are surrounded from both eastern and western sides and are now fleeing the area after leaving their weapons and disguising themselves."
Friday's mosque bombing was the latest in a series of attacks on civilian and security targets -- attacks widely seen as retribution by Islamist extremists for Pakistan's blistering air and ground offensive in three districts.
The north-west offensive has broad public support, and the vigilante attacks in Upper Dir signalled rising tensions between locals and the extremists bent on imposing a harsh brand of Islamic law.
Pakistan launched its north-west push after the Taliban advanced to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad in early April, violating a deal to put the region's three million people under sharia law in exchange for peace.
Pakistan's government has in the past encouraged the formation of lashkar militias to boost the official armed forces in their fight against militants.
- AFP

By RIAZ KHAN – 59 minutes ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — Investigators searched a wrecked luxury hotel in northwestern Pakistan for evidence Wednesday after a bold suicide bombing killed 11 people, including aid workers, in what the U.N. condemned as a "heinous terrorist attack."