Hundreds of tribesmen from Pakistan's semiautonomous regions near the Afghan border ended a rare tribal council meeting over the weekend with a declaration calling for the army to crush the Taliban like Sri Lanka did against the LTTE, the Pakistani media reported.The meeting in the city of Peshawar was called by an umbrella group of aid organizations and political parties in an effort to bring together people from the violence-battered region. 

Participants called for the army to escalate its attacks, dismissing earlier offensives as "military dramas." Sayd Alam Mehsud, a powerful tribal leader, said, "It should be a genuine military operation like the Sri Lankans did against the Tamil Tigers." He was referring to the military campaign that destroyed the separatist Tamil army in Sri Lanka, the Pakistani media said.