Waziristan residents grow impatient with Pakistan security forces

WASHINGTON, March 17 (UPI) -- Pakistan's anti-terrorist efforts in the country's turbulent North West Frontier Province are unpopular with the local population as military operations disrupt regular life there.

In an incident that may worry authorities in Islamabad, Kashar World News reported Wednesday that during a meeting of tribal elders and ulema at the Jamia-ul-Aloorn madrassa theological facility in Wana, participants decided to invite the Taliban to establish a headquarters in South Waziristan to suppress rising regional crime, drug trafficking and unrest.

Former National Assembly member Maulana Noor Mohammed is the patron-in-chief of the madrassa. In January, Mohammed was injured during an anti-terrorist air and ground assault in Miranshah. Last month, Mohammed organized local protests against the Danish publication of caricatures felt by Muslims to be offensive to the Prophet Mohammed.

In June 2004 Mohammed along with militant leaders Maulvi Mohammed Abbas and Haji Mohammed Omer held secret negotiations with NWFP Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah to defuse rising regional tension after local militant leader Nek Mohammed was killed in a precision-guided missile attack in Wana.

In 2005 Maulvi Mohammed Abbas and four other militants signed a peace agreement with the government and were granted pardons in return for promising not to carry out attacks against the government.

Kashar quoted one analyst who noted, "It is the responsibility of the government to maintain law and order in the area. But I think that the government has failed in doing so. That is why, the government has so far not opposed the decision."