Army Operation In Swat

[JF-17 Thunder]

Troops start ground offensive in Swat
Monday, November 26, 2007

MINGORA: Security forces backed by gunship helicopters and artillery have begun a ground offensive against pro-Taliban militants, killing at least 35 of them and losing two soldiers, the military said on Sunday.

It was the first time ground troops had been used in the Swat region, said army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad. He said the troops had gained control of mountaintops overlooking three militant-held villages near Mingora in an operation that was launched late on Saturday, reported AP. The troops controlled all entry and exit points to these villages, he added. He said 15 soldiers were also wounded.

“The strongholds of militants are being hit. Troops have demolished their bunkers and destroyed a checkpost,” Arshad said.

Meanwhile, Swat Media Centre spokesman Amjad Iqbal told reporters that three policemen had been injured in fighting in the Balogram, Rahimabad and Barikot areas. Online reported that two of the policemen had sustained minor injuries when militants in Balogram and Rahimabad shot at a mobile police car. In another incident, a Suzuki van parked along the roadside exploded on Saturday night, injuring one soldier.

He said security forces had ensured that mosques, madrassas and the civil population were not affected by Saturday night’s operation. An arms depot discovered in Kooza Bandai Government School had been destroyed, he added.

Curfew extended: Also on Sunday, the local administration announced a 24-hour extension to the curfew that has been in place since Saturday afternoon, enforcing it till 2pm on Monday. Earlier, a 24-hour curfew had been imposed from 2pm on Saturday till 2pm on Sunday.

Local residents said artillery had been targeting militant positions in Dherai, Kooza Bandai and Najia Top, while gunship helicopters pounded rebel cleric Maulana Fazlullah’s headquarters in Imam Dherai and its surroundings, Daily Times staffers Daud Khattak and Saleem Athar reported. Several Taliban have been killed and injured in the previous 24 hours of fighting but the exact number of casualties could not be confirmed from any independent sources.

People of the restive areas continued fleeing their houses to escape to the relative safety of Mingora, Faizabad and Saidu Sharif. Telephone connections have been switched off and people in areas where the fighting is going on are facing food shortages. Local residents said the troops had stopped the delivery of any food items, medicine and other basic necessities of life to Taliban-held areas, resulting in residents facing serious food, healthcare and transportation problems.

Fazlullah visit: Meanwhile, Taliban sources said Maulana Fazlullah had visited militant positions in Najia Top, Kooza Bandai and Dherai and issued fresh instructions to his men.

Briefing journalists a day earlier, NWFP caretaker Information Minister Imtiaz Hussain Gillani said the provincial government was planning to convene a grand jirga to discuss the trouble in Swat and suggest methods to defuse the tension there. He said the caretaker cabinet had decided to establish camps for the people of Swat displaced by the fighting between security forces and Taliban militants.

FM radio: Authorities have also set up their own FM radio station to counter the militant propaganda spread by Fazlullah’s pirate radio station. staff report/agencies


Daily Times

 

[JF-17 Thunder]

People told to vacate village in Waziristan
Monday, November 26, 2007

Staff Report

MIRANSHAH: The army directed residents of Thapi village in North Waziristan to vacate the area at around 4pm on Sunday after it defused six remote controlled improvised explosive devices (IEDs) fitted near the village. The army ordered the residents to vacate the village, 15 kilometres east of Miranshah, under the collective responsibility clause of the Frontier Crime Regulations (FCR).

Meanwhile, a 35-member jirga from the village also met Assistant Political Agent (APA) Taslim Khan in Miranshah. The APA extended the deadline till 12pm on Monday (today). The jirga members included Malik Gul Bahram Khan, Malik Gul Faraz Khan, Malik Awal Din, Malik Zar Wali and Malik Usman Khan. The Frontier Crime Regulations comprises a set of laws enforced by British colonialists in 1901 in the tribal areas.


Daily Times

 

[JF-17 Thunder]

Taliban burn aid agency food: officials
Monday, November 26, 2007

WANA: Local Taliban militants seized and burned thousands of kilogrammes of food destined for pregnant women from a hospital in South Waziristan, officials said on Sunday.

The food, mainly lentils and cooking oil, had been supplied by the aid charity Save the Children to feed pregnant women suffering from malnutrition.

A Taliban activist said they were destroyed because “foreign NGOs want to harm our future generations.” An administration official, Tariq Salim, said the Health Ministry officials had not consulted him before distributing food directly to the women. Meanwhile, in North Waziristan, three people were killed and five wounded when troops conducted “retaliatory” strikes on suspected militant hideouts in Mir Ali, local officials said. Several houses were destroyed in the strikes that came after militants hit a checkpost with a missile barrage. One soldier was wounded in the rocket attack late Saturday, they said. afp


Daily Times

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Stopping food to a confined location, where the population can at best be in hundreds and a confined location is different from blockading a complete district of its food, dont you think?

LM, a small mosque in the centre of the capital city which can be blockaded by having people all round the city and where you know that you can have access if you want within 4 hours anywhere inside, is different from a district, or you think there is no difference at all.

Let me tell you the foolish ness of this episode. What will happen is the women and children will move out of the area as refugees to another district in the area, but the children have only one future for them, become unruly elements without any education for them, in short no future.

then the whole of fence sitters and some who were actually with Pakistan intially actually turn completely against Pakistan, they will start contributing infact their whole stores to the militants and these militants will become the heroes with the villians being Pakistan. and yes, because of the food ban, they will start raiding the villages and towns nearby the borders of swat which means you have just increased the conflict territory in a jiffy.

If you want to break Pakistan into pieces, frankly even India couldnt have come up with a better idea, congratulations to you and all these thinkers.

Ever wondered why even Israel stopped short of exercising this option on Palestine?

The comment was directed at the position taken by Musharraf critics that he should have "starved" out the LM Mullahs - I fail to see how that could be a more humane position than "resource control" in SWAT, when you would have also had thousands (as some believed at the time, and the Mullahs claimed) of innocents suffering and dying, as the militants hoarded what little supplies they had for themselves.

Don't go off on useless tangents of "4 hour resupplies" - that is not the question and that would only come about if the militants actually gave up after being starved. Considering they fought to death, that was not going to happen.

The Swat situation is actually a relatively better one for implementing "resource control". The GoP has been ordering the locals to evacuate the area for weeks now, even if there are many who haven't, in this situation they will still have the option to leave, granted that it would still be a hardship - but better than starving, unlike in the LM case where they were all held hostage under guns. The advantage of the locals leaving will be two fold - the "resource control" will end up specifically affecting the militants, and the chance of collateral damage goes down allowing for the military to use more force without concern for civilian casualties.

What are the options otherwise, considering that talks have failed and the militants must not be allowed to succeed? If there is a chance that this strategy will yield even minor gains, such as forcing the local population to relocate, then it is good thing because you further minimize the chances of collateral damage, and make it easier to identify the hostiles.

No one wants to see innocent people starving or homeless, but the GoP didn't start this, Fazlulah did. While criticism of a lack of early action may be justified, there is no point crying over spilled milk - the question is over how to most effectively and rapidly clear the area of militants. And by allowing food supplies to the area to continue, and residents to continue living there, the suffering from a protracted conflict and the subsequent increased collateral damage are not preferable to the hardships imposed by "resource control".

Talks have failed, Jirga's have failed - in the weeks pre and post emergency, the GoP was criticized for not "taking action", when they were allowing time for the Jirga's to achieve some sort of breakthrough that never came.

Now if you have any better suggestions on how to root out the militants without increasing the duration of the conflict and increasing collateral damage. them please share. The only "foolishness" I see is being wishy washy in dealing with the menace, because that will guarantee the conflict runs long enough to allow for what you described.

As far as "breaking Pakistan into pieces" - please, lets not get overly theatrical here - the population of FATA is already against the Army for the apparent "American Puppet" perception - yet no one is asking for independence. Unlike FATA, the residents of Swat have seen development and have interacted and gotten along with people from the rest of Pakistan and the world. Your dire predictions of doom and gloom are nothing but drivel in the absence of any substantive reasoning as to why such a thing would come to pass.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Salim sir,

It is a very effective tool, I have no doubts about that.

but I notice a small but a significance difference, all those "resource controllers" never called that area as their homeland and never intended to make it as such. whereas Pakistan and Swat do not fall under this scenario.

Ofcourse, the only option I see after the completion of this strategy (after 5-10 years) is, after this will be swamping of Swat with different "development" strategies, whose sole aim will be move Punjabis and Sindhis to this location and thus complete a demographic change. Without this step, Swat will remain a problem area for eternity.

More drivel.

How do you arrive at the conclusion that "after this will be swamping of Swat with different "development" strategies, whose sole aim will be move Punjabis and Sindhis to this location and thus complete a demographic change." ?

I understand that as an Indian you have your biases, but surely Chidanand Rajghatta has not been so effective with his anti-Pakistan, hate-spewing, quasi factual articles to allow that level of a lack of intellectual honesty to permeate through to other Indians.

I fail to see what the point about "homeland" has to do with anything. This isn't a small band of vigilantes we are fighting here. I personally believe that the GoP is deliberately underreporting the number of militants in the area - they have killed over two hundred already. What you essentially have is an occupation of Pakistani territory by tyrannical forces - whether they call themselves "Pakistani" is irrelevant. This is a unified force under a single leadership, equipped with heavy weapons (mortars, RPG's, HMG's, AA guns, Land Mines, IED's), a sophisticated communications system and transport. If you ignore the fact that they are "Pakistani" (and there are a few that are not - Uzbeks, Afghans etc), then this would be nothing less than a military invasion, and this is precisely how it would be treated and should be treated.

 

[IceCold]

By the way, for Ice cold, please read this BBC News regrading the Govt.'s Refugee Camps, Thanks a lot.

BBCUrdu.com

Your quoting me BBC. What the hell. Anyways i wouldnt blame you since your living in UK and so i believe you can quote me any western soure. But you see unlike you who's sitting in UK basing his judgement on western biased media, i'm sitiing in pakistan with some 1 i know from swat. And he seems pretty ok with how government is handling. You are saying for a terrorist that he did some silly things. Woww is this your way of describing terrorist and terrorism. Is he doing a few silly things.

 

[Proud to be Pakistani]

Only way is to eradicate all who want to challenge Law enforcement agencies in these regions. The population of FATA is merely 3341070 out of which half are children and another half are women. Most likely few thousands are fighting against GoP and they are fighting with the incent of CIA to destabalize Pakistan.

But rest assured that a country of 180 million cannot be taken into piece by these people playing puppet in hands of US.

 

[khan5036]

Mr Ice Cold

It looks like many people talk without knowing facts!

I am originally from Swat and my family is sitting there, so I believe my information is correct, as I do speak to them, plus on the other hand my brother is deployed in Swat (being a Major), so I know what is happening. Thanks!

 

[khan5036]

By the way BBC URDU is run by people sitting in Pakistan, thanks.

Anyways another news about rehabilitation :

BBCUrdu.com

 

[khan5036]

There is NO arguement about that operation should be carried on, rather it should have been started even earlier.

About 'few silly things' is an English phrase, it does not mean anything more or less. It is obvious that people from Swat (most) do NOT like a lot of things done by Maulana Fazal.

The discussion about it is clear, but the point of discussion raised was rehabilitaton, which is ofcourse NOT impressive, even admitted by Govt. officials. Govt. should take full control of the law and order situation, but it should make sure that people do get rehabilitation.

 

[IceCold]

Mr Ice Cold

It looks like many people talk without knowing facts!

And many people claim to be knowining everything sitting outside.

I am originally from Swat and my family is sitting there, so I believe my information is correct, as I do speak to them, plus on the other hand my brother is deployed in Swat (being a Major), so I know what is happening. Thanks!

You are orginally from swat so...does that make you know everything by default. Anyhow since your family is there, so i wouldnt wana make comments, also my source was too someone from the army. Besides you quoted BBC, which also made the information more doubtful, running by pakistanies doesnt make it a geniune news agency, its still stays western and we pakistanies are known for dismantling things from what they are. Hope you get the drill here.

 

[IceCold]

About 'few silly things' is an English phrase, it does not mean anything more or less.

A phrase, well i must say a very understatement you chose for a phrase here.

I

t is obvious that people from Swat (most) do NOT like a lot of things done by Maulana Fazal.

So does that mean that people of swat actually do like a FEW] things done by the maulana in swat? If so kindly state which ones as you are from swat and happen to know more so that the rest of us can also be enlighten by it.

 

[Spring Onion]

A phrase, well i must say a very understatement you chose for a phrase here.

I

So does that mean that people of swat actually do like a FEW] things done by the maulana in swat? If so kindly state which ones as you are from swat and happen to know more so that the rest of us can also be enlighten by it.

Oh yes Icecold they do like few things like Just Yesterday,


This bhangee Fazlullah orders each household to donate Rs20 daily for the militants at GunPoint.

Plus those affectedd families specially women teachers who were staying in schools were threatened by him.

AS far the camp for displaced people, earlier the government decided to set it up in Upper Dir but these very militants threatened to blow it up.
Owing to risk factor now the camp has been shifted to Risalpur.

 

[Spring Onion]

Troops tighten noose around militants
Another Taliban commander among scores killed

MINGORA: Another local Taliban commander and close aide of Maulana Fazlullah among scores was killed on Monday as troops, backed by gunship helicopters, tightened noose on the militants in the highland scenic valley.
Security forces targeted the mountaintop hideouts of militants loyal to Maulana Fazlullah of Imam Dehri, a stronghold of Taliban, through the night, in charge local media centre Major Amjad Iqbal told reporters.

Khan Khitab, who was said to be a close ally of Maulana Fazlullah, was killed during clashes between security forces and armed Taliban in Matta on Sunday night.
"The militants suffered heavy losses and their casualties were numerous," Iqbal said as government forces tried to dislodge the militants from bases in the district of Kabal and the nearby Shangla hills.

He said that scores of miscreants were killed when military helicopters targeted and destroyed a convoy of militants on Bara Banda-Shakardara road.
In Tutano Banda said that a man Akbar Ali was butchered by militants alleged to be a government spy.
“The Taliban slaughtered Akbar Ali like a goat before alleging him to have contacts with security forces and said he (Akbar Ali) was exchanging information with army,” local source, who sough anonymity, told
Sources in Kabal, Charbagh and Mata told the Statesman on telephone that many dead bodies of militants are lying in the fields following Sunday night’s attack by the security forces.
The authorities have clamped a curfew in Swat and Malakand Agency for indefinite time, however, on Monday it was lifted for four-hours from 8am to 12 noon, to give people time for purchasing utility items. People thronged markets to buy essential goods.
Also during this period many candidates submitted their nominations for the upcoming polls.
Relaxation in curfew was also given in the restive areas like Koza Banda, Bara Banda and Ningolai on Monday from 2pm to 5pm, where the people buried the dead bodies of militants and civilians mistakenly killed during the overnight clashes.
On Sunday night, Haj pilgrims were given special relaxation and were transported under arrangements by the civil administration to Haji Camp, Peshawar.
Around 2400 displaced personnel from various affected areas have been accommodated in government schools and are being provided with free bedding, food and other administrative needs.
Militants’ locations around Mam Deri, Kuza Banda, Bara Banda, Saigram and Ningolai areas were targeted by army gunship helicopters on Sunday night.
Residents said most of the militants had fled the Shangla area.
"Previously they were in hundreds but most appear to have fled and now only a few are visible," one said under cover of anonymity because of the danger.
Meanwhile, the security forces appealed to Swatis to cooperate with the security forces over the already established check-posts in order to differentiate among innocent masses and the militants.
“Masses are once again requested to remain calm and determined and join hands with security forces to get these militants out of the area,” army said in a statement.

Report by Jana

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Residents said most of the militants had fled the Shangla area.
"Previously they were in hundreds but most appear to have fled and now only a few are visible," one said under cover of anonymity because of the danger.

Good report Jana.

The part about "hundreds of militants" seems to confirm my suspicion that the number of militants was higher than the GoP was suggesting. If there were hundreds in Shangla alone, we might be looking at a total of a thousand or more in the entire area. That is a pretty big force.