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Pakistan urged to act against Taliban resurgence

By Xinhua

Islamabad : Pakistan has been urged to act against the Taliban resurgence in country's northwest regions.

According to the newspaper Dawn, Pakistan's National Security Council (NSC) has warned that regrouped and reorganised Taliban poses a serious threat to Pakistan and called upon the country's leadership to act before it is too late.

NSC convened a meeting with President Pervez Musharraf earlier this month to discuss the militancy in the Federally-Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Afghan-Pakistan border and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Dawn said Saturday.

The NSC stated that militancy and extremism had risen with an increase in the number of suicide attacks in the tribal areas and unhindered movement of militants.

They also said that suicide attacks, harassment of NGOs, bombings of barber and video shops, threats to religious minorities, girls schools and politicians and attacks on law-enforcement personnel were on the rise in the NWFP.

Pakistan, which has sent some 90,000 troops to the tribal areas to stop militancy and cross-border movement of fighters since 2001, is facing an uphill battle in large parts of the country's northwest.

The peace agreement reached by authorities and tribal elders in the North Waziristan region was holding, but it remained fragile with Mirali, a sub-district that has emerged as the hub of militant activities, reported Dawn.

In Mohmand and Orakzai, two relatively peaceful regions among the seven component units of FATA, there were signs of increasing militancy as well, the report added.