Pakistan Moves Troops To Counter Taliban

Pakistani paramilitary forces have been deployed to protect government buildings and bridges in a district near the capital that has come under the Taliban's sway, officials said Thursday.

The six Frontier Constabulary platoons arrived in northwestern Buner on Wednesday, days after militants from the neighboring Swat Valley began infiltrating the area in large numbers, establishing checkpoints, patrolling roads and spreading fear.

The Taliban movement into the district, which lies just north of the capital, came after the provincial government agreed to impose Islamic law, or Shariah, in Swat and surrounding areas in exchange for peace with the insurgents.

Pakistan's president signed off on the deal last week, heightening concern that the agreement would embolden the extremists to expand their reign in the northwest regions bordering Afghanistan, and possibly beyond.

"The orders to the military units are to seize control of Buner at any cost," one Pakistani official told CBS News' Farhan Bokhari on condition of anonymity, because he was not authorized to discuss the operation.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, speaking to U.S. lawmakers, used her strongest language yet on the threat of Islamic militancy spreading across Pakistan.

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said. Describing the Taliban's recent advances as an "existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan," Clinton urged Pakistanis to "speak out forcefully against a policy that is ceding more and more territory," adding that the Taliban insurgents were now "within hours of Islamabad."

Pakistan's Foreign Ministry defended the peace agreement in Swat Thursday. Abdul Basit, a ministry spokesman, told reporters the deal was "a local solution to a local problem."

"It's implementation will bring peace to that area," Basit said at a media briefing. "We are confident of our national resilience to counter this problem (of terrorism)."

Syed Mohammed Javed, a top government official who oversees the area covered by the peace deal, confirmed that the platoons had been sent to Buner, but he would not say if it was in direct response to the Taliban infiltration.

He did not specify the number of troops involved, but a platoon typically has 30 to 50 members.

Also Thursday, dozens of militants armed with guns and gasoline bombs attacked a truck terminal elsewhere in northwestern Pakistan, burning five tanker trucks carrying fuel to NATO troops in Afghanistan, police said.

Meanwhile, Bokhari reports that Pakistani authorities ordered tighter security around the country's railway network on Thursday after reports that the system could become the latest target for Islamic militants.

A senior official from the ministry of railways in Islamabad told Bokhari, "we saw reports that terrorists may try to seize a train and hold the passengers hostage. That is why we have now got tighter security on trains and railway stations."

The threat of Islamic hardliners targeting Pakistan's train system follows mounting concern that the Taliban is trying to seize control of the country's main cities, including parts of the populous Punjab province - home to 60 percent of the nation's population.

"These people are seeking more and more as time goes by. Any concessions by the government are going to be seen by them (Taliban) as a sign of weakness," said Ghazi Salahuddin, a prominent newspaper columnist for The NEWS, a mainstream Pakistani English newspaper, told Bokhari.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, met Thursday with his Pakistani counterpart, Gen. Tariq Majeed and Pakistani Air Force chief Rao Suleiman Qamar during his second day on an unexpected visit to Islamabad.

The meetings followed Mullen's meeting with Gen. Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani, chief of staff of the Pakistan army.

Senior Western military officials said Mullen's visit appeared to reinforce U.S. concerns over the increasing Taliban activity in the wake of the government's deal in Swat.

"The U.S. is having a very hard time understanding exactly why it is that one of the world's larger armies, armed with nuclear weapons, cannot fight and win a war against these rag-tag militants," said one Western military official, who spoke to CBS News on condition of anonymity.