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13 May 2009
The Pakistani military has said it captured a Taliban
stronghold in Gatt Puchar, believed to be home to
Mullah Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban leader, and a
centre for 4,000 fighters.
The hideout in a mountainous region in the Swat
valley was taken on Tuesday morning, with
helicopters being used in the assault, military
sources told Al Jazeera.
Troops were dropped into
the area, which has so far proved to be impenetrable
for ground forces.
General Athar Abbas, a Pakistani military
spokesman, said that troops were dropped into the
region as a "search and destroy operation" was
launched.
"The militants are on the run," he said.
There has
been no confirmation of Fazlullah's whereabouts
following the attack, but his spokesman has said he
still commands his forces in the region.
Fazlullah is the son-in-law of Sufi Muhammad, a
local religious leader who negotiated a controversial
deal with the government under which a stricter
interpretation of sharia would be implemented in the
Swat valley.
'Parachuted commandoes'
Imran Khan, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Peshawar,
said: "The army is telling us that they started to use
heavy bombardment against a mountain stronghold that
belongs to Mullah Fazlullah.
"Once that bombing was over they sent in
helicopters and then parachuted in commandoes to take
the area," he said.
"This area is home to nearly 4,000 Taliban fighters
and it is home to Pakistan Taliban in the Swat
valley's arms dump and training camps for suicide
bombers and armed fighters. So it's really the hub.
"It's a crucial blow to the Pakistani Taliban."
Another air attack on Tuesday killed at least eight
people in a house in Sara Mhora in South Waziristan, near
the Afghan border, according to intelligence sources.
The attack is thought to have been carried out by
an unmanned US drone.
Taliban casualties
Abbas said that 751 opposition fighters had been
killed so far during the military offensive in Lower
Dir, Buner and Swat valley.
Twenty-nine security personnel had also been killed in
fighting which began less than two weeks ago.
Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban,
told Al Jazeera on Monday that the military was
"lying" about their successes.
"They simply want to impress the Obama
administration, because that's where they get their
money from," he said.
The latest fighting came as the United Nations
refugee agency said that more than 500,000 people
had been registered as displaced since May 2.
The newly registered internally displaced Pakistanis
join another 500,000 who fled fighting in North West
Frontier Province before the military began its
offensive.
The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) said it was
doubling its shipments of emergency food to the newly
displaced, but warned that more funds would be needed
to feed the stranded over the next two to three
months.
Mass displacement
"It's a Pashtun genocide," Rustam Shah Mohmand,
former ambassador to Afghanistan and a security expert
at the Institute of Policy Studies, told Al Jazeera.
"How can you assess the success of an operation that
has resulted in the displacement of one million people
so far, that has caused the flattening of whole
villages?
"The scars will not heal for many, many years to
come.
"There will be a tremendous amount of hatred
against the government because it's believed that the
government perhaps created an environment in which a
military operation had become so necessary.
"Pakistani Taliban would never have posed any
danger to the state. That is grossly exaggerated. They
do not even hold Buner.
"A small security force could have defeated them.
Instead, the option of resorting to full-scale
military operation was used by the government.
"It is a very, very disproportionate reaction."
Yousuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, has
said the Taliban poses an existential threat to the
country and has urged civilians to leave the Swat
valley area to avoid casualties.
The offensive in the Swat valley, located 130km
northwest of Islamabad, the capital, is seen as a test
of the government's resolve to get to grips with an
increasingly powerful Taliban.
But some analysts have said the government must get
results quickly and minimise civilian suffering or
else it risks growing public opposition. -- Al Jazeera
and agencies |
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