Al Zawahiri aide 'vows' peace

Khar: A Pakistani militant leader - suspected of ties with Al Qaida's No. 2 chief, Ayman Al Zawahiri - promised yesterday to renounce violence and cooperate with the government, an official said.

Maulvi Faqir Mohammad made the peace pledge to tribal elders who met with him on behalf of Pakistan's government in Bajaur, a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, said Bajaur's top administrator, Shakil Qadir Khan.

In an attempt to stop attacks on its security forces, Pakistan, a key US anti-terror ally, increasingly relies on tribesmen in the frontier region - rather than the army - to police the territory.

However, the tactic has faced criticism from the West that it could give militants a freer hand to use Pakistan's soil for attacks on US and Nato forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Yesterday's council of tribal elders was held in Damadola, the scene of a January 2006 US missile strike that targeted but missed Al Zawahiri and killed at least 13 villagers.

In the aftermath of the attack, the government said it was hunting for Mohammad, believing he had survived the assault and could provide clues about a dinner attended by senior Al Qaida operatives, before the missile strike. Al Zawahiri had been reportedly invited, but had not attended.

At large

Al Zawahiri, like Al Qaida chief Osama Bin Laden, remains at large, still suspected to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistan border. Mohammad was also thought to have narrowly escaped a Pakistani aerial assault on a religious school near Damadola last October. About 80 people were killed in the strike. The government said the school was being used as a militant training facility, a claim denied by local people. Yesterday, Mohammad promised that he will fully cooperate for "the Pakistan government's stability and the country's defence", and will not carry out terrorism inside the country, Khan said.

"He is now a peaceful citizen of the area. He has no restriction on him," Khan told reporters in Khar, the main town in Bajaur. "We have no plans to arrest him." It wasn't immediately clear if Mohammad had offered any assurance he would not fight jihad, or holy war, in Afghanistan.

Abdul Aziz, who headed the 25-member delegation of tribal elders who met with Mohammad and eight fellow militants, confirmed Khan's account of the meeting.

In March, the government announced that in return for development aid, tribesmen in Bajaur had promised not to harbour militants. Similar deals have been reached with pro-Taliban militants in the volatile frontier regions of South and North Waziristan. Tribesmen in South Waziristan subsequently launched a campaign to eject hundreds of Uzbek militants with Al Qaida links from their territory.