Musharraf Fights Political Foes, Ignores Jihadists (Updated)

Pakistani dictator Pervez Musharraf may be justifying his putsch by saying it'll help him fight Islamic militants. But "as General Musharraf met with diplomats in Islamabad and the police arrested lawyers," the New York Times reports, "government officials confirmed that they had reached a peace agreement with Baitullah Mehsud, one of the area’s most powerful militant commanders."

The government released 25 of Mr. Mehsud’s militants in exchange for 213 army soldiers captured by Mr. Mehsud’s forces in August. The army also agreed to withdraw soldiers from the area inhabited by Mr. Mehsud’s tribe in South Waziristan and allow members of the Frontier Corps, a lightly armed paramilitary force, to patrol the area instead.

Meanwhile, "hundreds of Islamic militants seized a town in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday after outnumbered security forces laid down their arms," according to the AP.

"About two dozen police officers and several troops offered no resistance to militants who seized three police stations and a military post in and around Matta, a town in the Swat valley."

Across Pakistan, the *Times *observes, "policemen and intelligence agents have been diverted from hunting terrorists to arresting lawyers, who apparently are being assessed as the greater threat to the general’s rule."

*The extraordinary steps General Musharraf has taken against
Pakistan’s courts and its news media will in any case have little effect in Pakistan’s tribal areas, where Al Qaeda and other groups are thriving. Federal judges have limited jurisdiction in the tribal areas and journalists are barred from traveling alone there... ***

Even former military officials contend that General Musharraf has had five years to contain militancy in the tribal areas and enact other reforms, but that he has failed. This was particularly the case in the past year, they said, as more and more of his attention was absorbed by maneuvering to keep his hold on power...

*General Musharraf invited Islamabad’s diplomatic corps to his official residence on Monday to brief them on the situation and on his reasons for declaring emergency rule. But two Western diplomats said the encounter only reinforced concerns that General Musharraf was more focused on vanquishing his political rivals than on fighting terrorism.
*

*At the meeting, the general primarily railed against his political opponents, with special venom reserved for the Supreme Court.
When asked by a diplomat to describe specific plans to crack down on terrorists, General Musharraf gave only a vague answer. *

UPDATE: The usually-sharp Glenn Reynolds says the world is "more concerned with Musharraf's coup than with Hugo Chavez's emerging dicatatorship... because enemies of the United States, like Chavez, get a pass."

I can't speak for the world. But I'm more concerned because:

a) The bastards who blew up two giant buildings in my home town are still at large, in Musharraf's back yard.

b) Pakistan has enough nuclear weapons to kill millions.

UPDATE 2: "Pakistan's burgeoning dictatorship has done what every good failing state does when worried about America's response: it has targeted the lobbyists. With close to $900 million in foreign aid potentially under review, Pakistan wants to make sure that those pesky American lawmakers don't try to hold it accountable for it's recent hiatus from democracy."