President of Pakistan Promises Elections and No Emergency Rule

ISLAMABAD,Pakistan-As violence continued in Pakistan on Wednesday,Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf,promised to refrain from imposing emergency rule,and in a meeting with newspaper editors here,he said elections would be held on time later this year.In North Waziristan,in Pakistan’s tribal region,militants set off a roadside bomb on Wednesday as a military convoy was passing and then sprayed the convoy with gunfire, killing 17 soldiers,a security official said on the condition that he not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the press.The military spokesman,Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad,said an unknown number of militants had been killed when the soldiers returned fire.The killings raise the death toll to more than 200 in the past week after the bloody end to an eight-day siege of the radical Red Mosque here prompted a series of apparently retaliatory attacks on government forces.Last week,as troops were sent to the lawless tribal belt in northern Pakistan,the Taliban renounced a peace deal that had been negotiated last September.Suicide bombings and ambushes on Pakistani troops promptly increased.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/19/world/asia/19pakistan.html?ex=1342497600&en=5487ae3327ab8718&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
As in the days of Noah...