Pakistan Claims More Gains Against Taliban

NYT.COM
KHAWAZAKHELA, Pakistan — A top Pakistani general said Friday that the military has succeeded in clearing two militant strongholds in upper parts of the contested Swat valley and is just a week away from taking over a third.

“Essentially, at this point in time, we are looking at eliminating the hard core militants,” Major General Sajjad Ghani, the commanding officer of the military operation in the upper part of Swat, said in a briefing for journalists here. Khawazakhela is one of the largest cities in Swat, with a population locals estimate at more than 500,000.

General Ghani, who has been in the area for the past year and a half, said the military had cleared militants from Matta and Bini Baba Ziarart and was closing in on another stronghold in Peochar, in the upper Swat valley.

“The commandoes have already landed on the mountain peaks and ridges,” around Peochar, he said. “The militants are surrounded and encircled from all sides. They are hemmed in. And this is the right time that the security forces can go with full might and kill and eliminate the residual militants in the Peochar valley.”

Buoyed by the military’s success, local people in the neighboring northern area of Kalam have taken up arms against the Taliban, General Ghani said.

General Ghani ruled out the possibility of a ceasefire. “Miscreants are on the run,” he said. “Their command and control, communication infrastructure has been destroyed. They cannot coordinate and articulate operations in a coherent way any longer.”

While the military is gunning for the militant leadership, recruits who desert the Taliban ranks will be allowed to rejoin mainstream society, he said.

Gen. Ghani said residents could begin to return to Khawazakhela and Matta in 15 days.

But as of Friday, the city of Khawazakhela, like other towns and villages throughout the Swat valley, had a ghostly aspect when seen from a helicopter. Long roads winding through green fields were deserted. Dozens of cargo trucks were parked in the center of town, while smoke billowed from what seemed to be a filling station. Very few people could be seen.

The Pakistan Army has established an operational base in a girls’ college in the city. Soldiers in camouflage fatigues stood guard outside the boundary walls of the building.

“The Taliban would have blown it up had we not established our base here”, said Lt. Col. Abdul Rehman, one of the officers. The Taliban had targeted girls’ schools and banned female education.

Colonel Rehman said that 31 soldiers in his unit had been killed, but that morale remained high.

As helicopters flew in and out of the base, a group of young officers said there was no moral dilemma for them in fighting the Taliban, most of who are fellow Pakistanis. “They are not Muslims despite their claims to be so,” said Lt. Asad Hanif. “A true Muslim cannot slaughter people like the Taliban have been doing.”

Officers said the Taliban were recruiting young men from the area through intimidation and coercion, and raising money through extortion. While most of the Taliban militants were from the area, the officers said that some foreigners, most of them from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, had also joined in the fighting.

Rahimullah Shaheen, a local journalist, sounded a note of caution, saying that the Taliban who had been forced out of Khawazakhela had simply retreated into the nearby mountains, just a few miles from the city.