Pakistan May Take Back Khyber Region from Militants in 10 Days

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Pakistan forces will regain control of the northwest Khyber region, near a key supply route for international troops in Afghanistan, in the next 10 days after destroying a militant network, a government official said.

“We want to demolish the network and command system of the group that is backed by the Taliban,” Tariq Hayat Khan, the government’s political agent in the tribal region, said in a telephone interview today from Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Province. Later, troops will “go for the criminals and militants hiding in the mountains.”

The Khyber Agency, to the west of Peshawar, is on the main land route through Pakistan into Afghanistan where NATO-led forces are fighting a resurgent Taliban, mostly in the country’s south. Militants have destroyed trucks carrying supplies and escaped into the area’s rugged mountains.

The Lashkar-e-Islam group, believed to have 600 guerrillas in the Khyber region, is led by Mangal Bagh and backed by Taliban militants based in the South Waziristan tribal area, Khan said. It is involved in kidnapping for ransom, drug dealing and other crimes, he said.

This month’s army operation has killed about 150 militants, Khan said. The military turned its attention to tribal regions including South Waziristan and Khyber after Taliban militants were driven from the Swat Valley to the north. Only a few thousand people have fled the area because of fighting, said Khan, who is the chief administrator for the region.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik says the Taliban is in disarray after the defeat in Swat, where two top leaders were detained last week, and the death in a U.S. missile strike of Baitullah Mehsud, the group’s leader in South Waziristan.

The Khyber administration is recruiting local people into a security force after its more than 700 staff refused to work following threats by militants, Khan said.