Pakistan Releases Top pro-Taliban Militant From Prison

21 April 2008 -- Pakistan's new government has released an ailing top pro-Taliban militant involved in an insurgency in neighboring Afghanistan, after more than six years imprisonment.

Sufi Muhammad - head of the banned "Movement for the Enforcement of Sharia Law" - was freed Monday under a peace agreement with tribal elders in northwestern Pakistan.

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His release and the subsequent peace deal are seen as part of efforts by the new government to engage militants in dialogue and to mark a break from President Pervez Musharraf's policy of using force.

Sufi Muhammad led thousands of militants into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban against the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, which ended Taliban rule. He was arrested in 2002 when he returned to Pakistan.

Muhammad is the father-in-law of hard-line cleric leader Mullah Fazlullah, who has called for a holy war against the Pakistani government.

Last year, government security forces pushed Fazlullah's militants out of Swat Valley in North West Frontier Province. He remains at large.

Source: VOA News

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