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.
"The government has shown leniency over the past four or five days," Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Taliban Movement of Pakistan, told Reuters by telephone.
Omar said the decision to call a ceasefire was taken at a shura, or council meeting, chaired by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and a prime suspect in the assassination of pro-Western opposition leader Benazir Bhutto in late December.
Growing insecurity has raised fears about nuclear-armed Pakistan's stability as it heads towards an election on February 18 that was delayed after Bhutto's assassination.
Pakistani troops have been trying for years, with varying degrees of success, to clear these areas of militants, who also attack Western and Afghan government troops across the border.
