ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A powerful Taliban faction in a northwestern tribal region has said it is withdrawing from a peace deal with the government to protest continuing strikes by American drones, confronting the Pakistan military with a possible two-front campaign against militants, according to Pakistani news reports on Tuesday.
The Taliban faction, led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur, operates in the mountainous North Waziristan area along the border with Afghanistan.
It struck a peace deal with the authorities in February 2008, but Mr. Gul Bahadur said the truce was no longer operative. The development Monday came as American forces reinforce the international coalition in Afghanistan where Taliban fighters have traditionally relied on refuges in Pakistan’s lawless tribal regions.
Separately, The Associated Press reported that four people were killed in southwestern Pakistan when a car bomber struck trucks taking supplies to NATO forces in Afghanistan.
Soon after the Pakistani Taliban’s announcement that it was abandoning the truce, as many as 150 militants attacked a Pakistani military convoy about 22 miles west of Miramshah, the capital of North Waziristan. At least 30 soldiers —the Taliban claimed 60 — were believed to have been killed in the ambush, which highlighted the army’s vulnerability in the area.
The end of the peace deal came as the Pakistan military prepares for an offensive against another Taliban group, led by Baitullah Mehsud, in neighboring South Waziristan.
Mr. Mehsud is widely depicted as the main leader of the Taliban in Pakistan and has taken responsibility for a string of deadly bombings. The Pakistani authorities had been hoping to deny Mr. Mehsud support from North Waziristan, but Mr. Gul Bahadur’s decision has significantly expanded the theater of conflict.
Ahmadullah Ahmadi, a spokesperson of Mr. Gul Bahadur, was quoted by Pakistani news organizations as saying that guerrilla attacks would be launched against the Pakistani military unless drone attacks are stopped and government troops are pulled out of North Waziristan.
“We will attack forces everywhere in Waziristan unless the government fulfils these two demands,” Mr. Ahmadi was quoted as saying by Dawn, Pakistan’s most prestigious daily. Mr. Ahmadi accused the government of allowing the United States to carry out drone attacks in the region.
Mr. Gul Bahadur says that more than 50 drone strikes since the peace deal have killed hundreds of people, including, women and children.
After the attack on the military convoy Sunday, military vehicles lay wrecked and destroyed around the bodies of soldiers in the mangled wreckage. Under the 2008 peace agreement, militants agreed not to attack security forces or establish a parallel administration. But the peace was tenuous and strained by mutual distrust.
The truce came after the government offered major concessions, such as dismantling military checkpoints, releasing detained militants and compensating them and other tribesmen for their losses suffered during the military operation, Pakistani news organizations reported.
In return, elders of Utman Zai tribe, which inhabits the area, had assured the government that there would be no cross-border movement and foreigners would not be allowed to take refuge.
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