RNA (Pakistan) - One of Pakistan's most deadly Taliban groups has abandoned its armed struggle and announced it will focus on a peaceful campaign calling on the country to adopt Islamic sharia law, the UK-based Telegraph reported.
The Punjabi Taliban is believed to have carried out a number of significant terrorist attacks, including the 2009 assault on the Pakistan army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, in which nine soldiers were killed; the commando raid on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the same year, and the 2011 attack on the naval airbase at Mehran in which 18 servicemen and two US-donated aircraft were destroyed.
It has also been blamed for a number of sectarian atrocities, including attacks on the country's Ahmadi Muslims and the assassination of Pakistan's Christian minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti in 2011.
The announcement is seen as a further setback for Pakistan's alliance of 'Taliban' terrorist groups, which has suffered a number of fractures in recent weeks.
The Tehreek e Taliban Pakistan umbrella group broke into three factions earlier this month after a group of commanders, mainly Mehsud and Wazir tribesmen from North Waziristan, announced they had broken away to form their own group.
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