Sharia law

Sharia law in its Malakand region as part of a wider truce with the Taliban. The government agreed to implement Islamic law and suspend a military offensive across a large swath of northwest Pakistan on Monday in concessions aimed at pacifying a spreading Taliban insurgency there.

Pakistan's government has agreed to restore sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley and neighbouring areas of the country's northwest as part of a peace deal with local pro-Taliban fighters. Announcing the decision to restore sharia, a spokesman for the NWFP government said Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistani president, had already agreed in principle to this concession to the region's religious conservatives.

"All un-Islamic laws related to the judicial system, those against the Quran and Sunnah, would be subject to cancellation and considered null and void," a NWFP spokesman said in a statement following the talks. Officials gave few details of the kind of sharia they were planning to implement in the Malakand region, which includes Swat Valley, but said that laws that fail to comply with Islamic texts would be suspended.