Pakistan’s Army Plans to Enter Taliban Strongholds (Update1)
By James Rupert and Khalid Qayum
Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s army is one to two weeks away from winning control of all major roads in its assault on Taliban fighters in a tribal region, and will then move to take on the militants in their mountain strongholds.
In the first stage of the month-old South Waziristan operation, 28,000 troops have captured key highways and all the significant towns in the region, Major General Athar Abbas said in an interview at army headquarters yesterday. “In the second phase, we go and chase and eliminate them from the pockets and their hideouts,” he said after militants attacked a spy agency office in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 18 people.
The army started the campaign, the biggest yet against Islamic militant insurgents, on Oct. 17. The U.S. is pressuring Pakistan to clear the area of Taliban guerrillas, who it says are using bases there for attacks on NATO forces in Afghanistan.
The Taliban “keep calling it a tactical retreat, but in fact it was a rout,” Abbas said in Rawalpindi, the military headquarters city adjacent to the capital, Islamabad. “You don’t leave behind your personal weapons and ammunition” in an organized withdrawal, he said, as the army has found the guerrillas doing in Waziristan.
More than 500 militants have been killed in the offensive, while 55 soldiers have died, he said.
The offensive has provoked suicide bombings and commando raids by militants that have killed about 400 people in towns and cities, including the capital, over the last six weeks. Terrorist attacks had already increased after former Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a missile strike by a drone aircraft in the Waziristan area in August.
Swat Offensive
The army operation comes months after a similar offensive in the northwestern Swat valley where the military says it has defeated the Taliban. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said militants are staging a “desperate” guerrilla war as they are defeated. The bombings have been provoked by their losses in the fighting, he said.
The army complex Abbas spoke from was among the places targeted by militants in recent weeks, along with police complexes in the eastern city of Lahore and a twin suicide bombing at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, has been repeatedly struck. Yesterday’s bombing badly damaged the offices of the country’s main intelligence agency, while another in the city today killed five people.
The army operation in South Waziristan is targeting the Tehreek-e-Taliban, the group now led by Hakimullah Mehsud that Pakistan blames for 80 percent of terrorist attacks on its soil.
Army Chief Ashfaq Pervez Kayani while talking to his top commanders three days ago said attacks by militants were acts of “cowardice and frustration,” as they were unable to face the military
