Taliban group in Pakistan gives up armed struggle

Islamabad: The Punjabi Taliban, one of Pakistan's most deadly Taliban groups, has abandoned its armed struggle and announced it would now focus on promoting sharia law in the country.
This group is believed to have carried out a number of terrorist attacks, including the 2009 assault on the Pakistan army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, in which nine soldiers were killed; the commando raid on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the same year, and the 2011 attack on the naval airbase at Mehran in which 18 servicemen and two US-donated aircraft were destroyed.
It has also been blamed for a number of sectarian atrocities, including attacks on the country's Ahmadi Muslims and the assassination of Pakistan's Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti in 2011.
The announcement is seen as a further setback for Pakistan's alliance of 'Taliban' terrorist groups, which has suffered a number of setbacks in recent weeks. The Tehreek- e -Taliban Pakistan umbrella group broke into three factions earlier this month after a group of commanders, mainly Mehsud and Wazir tribesmen from North Waziristan, announced they had broken away to form their own group.
Observers said they were divided over the Pakistan army's offensive in the tribal areas which has driven thousands of people from their homes and fuelled dissent over whether the militants should fight their own country's army. There is also opposition to the umbrella group's leader, Maulana Fazlullah, who is based in Kunar province in Afghanistan and regarded as an outsider by Wazir and Mehsud tribesmen.
The rift has been credited with yielding intelligence which led to the arrest of a gang of terrorists which carried out the failed assassination attempt on Malala Yousafzai, the 14-year-old schoolgirl who defied the Taliban's ban on female education.
The Punjabi Taliban's existence and the success of its terrorist operations has been a long-standing challenge to government attempts to portray its insurgency as one led by distant militants from the country's unruly tribal frontier rather than strongly rooted in Pakistan's heartland.
Its announcement that it was abandoning its "armed struggle" was made with a declaration of its patriotism and desire to defend Pakistan from "outside threats".
Punjabi Taliban chief Ismatullah Muawiya said that after consulting other Muslim leaders, the organisation would now limit its use of force to "infidel forces" and would focus on promoting sharia law.