PAKISTAN DESCENDING: FIRST THEY RELEASE AQ KHAN, NOW THEY AGREE TO ENFORCE SHARIA IN THE FATA

GURADIAN: Pakistan imposes Islamic law in Taliban stronghold

Government brings in sharia courts in Malakand in attempt to placate extremists

Pakistan is to impose Islamic law in a vast region of the north-west called Malakand in an attempt to placate extremists, even as President Asif Zardari warns that they are "trying to take over the state".

Pakistani Taliban militants who are in control of the Swat valley in the region announced a ceasefire tonight, reacting to the government's agreement to bring in sharia courts.

Malakand is part of North West Frontier province, a regular part of Pakistan, not the wild tribal area, which runs along the Afghan border.

Critics warned that the new sharia regulations represented a capitulation to the extremists' demands, and that it would be difficult to stop hardliners elsewhere in the country from demanding that their areas also come under Islamic law.

"This is definitely a surrender," said Khadim Hussain of the Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a thinktank in Islamabad. "If you keep treating a community as something different from the rest of the country, it will isolate them."

Javed Iqbal, a retired judge, speaking on Pakistani television, said: "It means that there is not one law in the country. It will disintegrate this way. If you concede to this, you will go on conceding."

SINCE OBAMA WAS ELECTED, ALL OUR ENEMIES HAVE BEEN ON THE MOVE.

GEE... I WONDER WHY!?!?

• CAN YOU SAY A-P-P-E-A-S-E-M-E-N-T !?

• APPEASEMENT HAS ALWAYS ONLY EMBOLDENED ENEMIES.

• EITHER OBAMA IS A AN IDIOT, A FOOL - OR AN ALLY OF OUR ENEMIES.

• EITHER WAY: WE'RE EFFUSEECKAID UNTIL 2010.

DISSENT ACCORDINGLY.