This is an interesting, if somewhat suspect development. After Pakistani authorities released militant Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the man whom Pakistani authorities claimed was responsible for  Bhutto's assassination, Baitullah Mehsud, has issued a "firm order" for militants to stand down and cease all attacks in Pakistan.

Pamphlets containing his order appeared in tribal areas along the Afghan border. Mehsud said anyone found violating the order would be punished.

Pakistan's new government has said it will deal with Islamic militancy through dialogue and development.

On Monday night the authorities set free Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the founder of an outlawed Islamist group that has fought in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

He was released under an agreement to renounce violence and help restore peace in the north-west valley of Swat.

The release has been welcomed by Pakistani Taleban.

"All members of Tehrik-e-Taleban (Movement of Taleban) are ordered by Baitullah Mehsud that a ban is imposed on provocative activities for the sake of peace," according to a leaflet distributed in the South Waziristan region.

Anyone who defied the order would be punished publicly, the leaflet read.

"No arguments will be accepted. It's a firm order," it said.

A spokesman for Baitullah Mehsud, Maulvi Omar, told Pakistan's Dawn News channel that the Taleban had lately been in touch with the new government in connection with a possible new peace deal.

He said Maulana Sufi Mohammad's release was part of that deal.

I doubt this will help Afghanistan. At all.  It might even make things worse there, since a truce in place with Pakistan, which also comes with the understanding that Pakistan forces will withdraw from Waziristan, the Taliban would be able to concentrate all their efforts on the Afghan front and against NATO troops.  In fact, this is exactly what has already happened before, when putative "ally" Musharraf first granted the Taliban a de facto redoubt in the tribal areas.

So, this may seem like progress, and certainly it may be for Pakistanis, but its price could be a steepening of the fighting in neighbouring Afghanistan. The truce appears to ensure a now official, unmolested redoubt in the tribal areas.

What was it that George Bush kept saying about going after regimes that harboured "terrorists"?