ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani Taliban fighters announced a ceasefire on Wednesday after months of clashes with security forces and suicide attacks across the northwest of the country.
Military spokesmen were not immediately available forcomment but security officials in South Waziristan said therehave been contacts with militants in tribal strongholds of thePakistani Taliban.
"The government has shown leniency over the past four orfive days," Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-TalibanPakistan, or the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters bytelephone.
"That's why we are declaring a ceasefire."
Omar said the decision to call a ceasefire was taken at ashura, or council meeting, chaired by Baitullah Mehsud, theleader of the Pakistani Taliban and a prime suspect in theassassination of pro-Western opposition leader Benazir Bhuttoin late December.
Nearly 300 people have died in militant-related violencesince the start of the year, including six killed on Mondaywhen a suicide bomber rammed his motorcycle into a military busnear army headquarters in Rawalpindi, the garrison town nextdoor to the capital, Islamabad.
Growing insecurity has raised fears about nuclear-armedPakistan's stability as it heads towards an election onFebruary 18 that was delayed after Bhutto's assassination.
The Waziristan region is regarded as a sanctuary for alQaeda and Taliban militants who fled there after U.S.-ledforces ousted them from Afghanistan in late 2001.
Pakistani troops have been trying for years, with varyingdegrees of success, to clear these areas of militants, who alsoattack Western and Afghan government troops across the border.
(Reporting by Zeeshan Haider; editing by Simon-CameronMoore)
