Taliban threats to Imran Khan receive wide coverage in UK

LONDON: Threats to PTI chief Imran Khan by Pakistani Taliban to assassinate him received wide media coverage here on Friday as major newspapers expressed surprise over the threats for Imran Khan’s known stance in favour of Taliban but also for Khan’s determination that the planned march against drone strikes will go ahead regardless.
Khan was recently in London to raise support for the planned protest march against US drone strikes in Pakistan towards Waziristan, the area known as the hotbed of Islamist extremism and lawlessness, which has become a regular target of the remote controlled killer drones.
Activists from the US anti-war group Code Pink, largely made up of women including mothers whose sons have served in Afghanistan, and British human rights campaigners, journalists and politicians are also likely to attend the march.
Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan reportedly said Taliban will kill Khan if he comes to Waziristan but the Guardian said Taliban threat had surprised, including people in Khan’s camp, because of ‘Khan’s unflagging opposition to missile strikes by remote-controlled drones against Taliban commanders, his repeated calls for ceasefires and negotiations with the Taliban and his own bitter attacks on Pakistan’s elite class of ‘liberals’’.
The paper said it was due to this support that Khan had been dubbed ‘Taliban Khan’ by some critics also for the reasons that some ‘notorious conservative Islamists parties’ support him.
All papers mentioned Khan’s vow that ‘a man of faith doesn’t fear death’ and that the planned ‘march against drones that have destroyed millions of lives in Fata is worth dying for’.
Khan told the Guardian his ‘peace caravan’ would attract 100,000 people, most of them from Fata itself. “Every man in the tribal areas is a warrior and carries a gun. We will be using them to protect us,” he was quoted as saying.
Clive Stafford Smith, director of the rights group Reprieve, who is campaigning against the US drone missiles, said: “I have no desire to get myself or anyone else injured or killed. But we are going to North Waziristan, absolutely, we are going where the drones are”. “We are trying to open Waziristan up,” said Stafford Smith. “There is really no other war zone in the world where no one gets to go.”
Stafford Smith said he was responsible for ensuring the safety of the marchers from overhead drones operated by the Central Intelligence Agency. “My job is to make sure the CIA doesn’t do anything stupid. I will write to Obama and tell him that if my picture comes up on his weekly PowerPoint please, please don’t call in the drones,” he was quoted as saying in The Guardian.
The Independent newspaper said: “A number of observers had been surprised by the Taliban’s original quoted comment, given that both it and Mr Khan have spoken out against the drones and that his organisation has drawn support from religious conservatives”.
The US drone strikes have become major source of angst and concern for many in Pakistan, who blame them for killing many civilians and see them as a blow against the country’s sovereignty, said the paper.
The Telegraph said: “Mr Khan has been criticised for not being tough enough on the Pakistan Taliban in the past and that he has earned the nickname ‘Taliban Khan’ in some circles for his views and ties with conservative Islamists”.