There has been a major political shake-up in the leadership of two Pakistani provinces that border Afghanistan (one of which also border Iran). The governor of the North-West Frontier Province has resigned and will be replaced with the current governor of the province of Balochistan.

Although the corporate media has not outrightly identified the reasons for the governor’s resignation, it would appear as though the governor resigned because the Pakistani government failed to live up to its end of a recent peace-accord between militants and the military, which saw the militants release 213 Pakistani soldiers on the basis that the Pakistani military would return 30 of their own captives. In the end, the Pakistani military did not live up to their commitments as they refused to release 5 of the 30 militants. The Hindu is reporting that the U.S. had not been happy with earlier agreements brokered by the departing governor and had, in the past, told “Musharraf [to] recognise that [past] agreements “ha[d] not been successful or well-enforced and [that he needed to] tak[e] active steps to correct it”", i.e. break them.

The appointment of the Baluch governor to the NWFP is likely based on his reputation “for his tough action - which often took the form of brutal force - against Baluch nationalists”, meaning that the appointment of the new governor is likely to further destabilse the NWFP and now introduces the prospect of a destabilised Balochistan.