Operation Rah-e-Nijat (South Waziristan)

[fatman17]

Army must destroy Taliban, jirga declares

* National peace jirga urges govt to reach out to terrorists, but also to crush those unwilling to negotiate
* Dismisses earlier offensives as ‘military dramas’
* Tribal leader says ‘it should be a genuine military operation like the Sri Lankans did against the Tamil Tigers’

ISLAMABAD: Hundreds of tribesmen from regions near the Pak-Afghan border ended a rare tribal council on Saturday with a declaration calling for the army to crush the Taliban.

The meeting in Peshawar was called by an umbrella group of aid organisations and political parties in an effort to bring together people from the region.

Participants called for the army to escalate attacks against the Taliban across the tribal regions, dismissing Pakistan’s earlier offensives as “military dramas”.

“It should be a genuine military operation like the Sri Lankans did against the Tamil Tigers,” said Sayd Alam Mehsud, a powerful tribal leader, referring to the brutal military campaign that destroyed the separatist Tamil army in Sri Lanka.

They also called for more power for traditional councils.

“If we strengthen these councils and make them more functional, I believe it will win us half of the war,” said one participant, Salar Amjad Ali, 34. “We, the Pashtuns, live for our culture and tradition and we die for it,” he added.

While Saturday’s meeting was not a formal jirga, it is rare to have so many tribal leaders gather together.

A declaration at the end of the meeting called democracy vital to rooting out terrorism, arguing that the military should keep out of politics.

“A sapling of terrorism cannot grow in democracy. Any attempt to derail democracy is like letting the terrorists walk all over us,” the declaration said.

One organiser, Sayd Alam Mehsud, said the meeting was a way to bring together people from the area that is suffering most in Islamabad’s war against the militants.

“We have just tried to unite people for the sake of peace,” he said. Participants said they had little faith in the US-Pakistan alliance, and that Washington and Islamabad were more worried about internal political issues than dealing with the deep-set social issues at the root of much of the violence.

“If we do not address the mindset of the terrorists, we will not be able to eliminate terrorists,” said Alam.

Crush the unwilling: The tribal leaders urged the government in Pakistan to reach out to the militants - but also to crush those unwilling to negotiate.

“We tribesmen are more patriotic than anybody else,” said one participant, Din Muhammad Khan, who had come South Waziristan, where a government offensive that began last fall is thought to have killed hundreds of terrorists.

“Pakistan is ours. We are for Pakistan... we will die for this country if required,” he said. Meanwhile, in Karachi, police arrested three Taliban militants on Saturday and seized a bomb-making factory, a counter-terrorism official said.

Police raided a house in the city’s industrial area and forced the militants to surrender after a gunbattle, said Raja Omar Khatab, No one was injured.

After their arrest, the suspects led police elsewhere to the bomb factory, and a large number of explosives, detonators and other bomb-making material was seized, he said.

Violence has surged in Pakistan in recent days as terrorists - thought to be part of a loose network of insurgents fighting the US-allied Islamabad government - launched a wave of suicide bombings. ap

 

[air marshal]

Eleven Taliban militants killed in Orakzai assault
Wednesday, 24 Mar, 2010

PESHAWAR: The military on Wednesday launched an assault on Taliban hideouts in the northwest tribal belt, killing 11 militants in firefights and bombing raids, officials said.

The operation came hours after a US drone aircraft fired two missiles into a compound in North Waziristan tribal district near the Afghan border, killing at least six suspected militants in the latest strike by the spy planes.

Troops began operations just after midnight Wednesday to flush out militants from the outskirts of Kalaya, the main town in the Orakzai tribal district, a senior security official in Peshawar said.

Helicopter gunships also shelled the militants in the same area of Orakzai, part of the lawless tribal belt along the Afghan border which is infested with Taliban and Al-Qaeda extremists.

“At least 11 militants were killed in this clean-up operation,” the senior security official told AFP, refusing to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Major Fazlur Rehman, spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, confirmed that security forces were battling insurgents in Orakzai and there were “militants losses”, but did not give the numbers.

An intelligence official said the shelling destroyed five mud brick compounds used by Taliban militants, while an administrative official based in Kalaya confirmed the death toll.

Under US pressure, Pakistan has in the past year significantly increased operations against militants in its northwest including the tribal belt.

The rugged tribal terrain became a stronghold for hundreds of extremists who fled neighbouring Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001.

Washington says the militants use Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt to plot and stage attacks against Nato troops stationed in Afghanistan.

The United States has also stepped up missile strikes in the tribal belt.

The raid late Tuesday was the latest in nearly 100 US drone strikes that have killed more than 830 people in Pakistan since August 2008.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaque Pervaiz Kayani were in Washington on Wednesday for talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, where they were expected to push to secure armed drones for their own military.

 

[fatman17]

Airstrikes kill 66 Taliban in Orakzai Agency

* Dozens injured as jets target Taliban training centre in Mamuzai

By Abdul Saboor Khan

HANGU: Fighter jets bombed Ghaljo and Mamuzai areas, seen as strongholds of the Taliban in Upper Orakzai Agency, on Friday killing 66 terrorists.

Local residents said 48 terrorists were killed when fighter jets targeted a madrassa and training centre being run by Taliban in Mamuzai and Ghaljo areas. Twenty-two terrorists were reported injured in the strike.

Military sources confirmed the raids but gave no casualty figures, saying they were waiting for reports from their sources in the area.

Ten terrorists were killed in clashes with the security forces in Adamkhel Kalay and Mirobak areas in Lower Orakzai while eight others were killed in airstrikes in Dabouri in Upper Orakzai, security officials told Daily Times.

Taliban death toll reached 87 on the third consecutive day. The number of the injured reached 56 while 12 were arrested by the forces, the officials said.

Operation Khwakh Ba De Sham aims to dislodge Taliban from Orakzai where the top leadership and commanders of the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan moved last year after Operation Rah-e-Nijat flushed Hakeemullah Mehsud-led Taliban out from their strongholds in South Waziristan.

“We are advancing towards the strongholds of the militants,” the officials said, adding that they were facing resistance.

The US-trained paramilitary Frontier Corps and regular army jawans are taking part in the operation aiming to deny the militants safe-havens in the strategically located Orakzai tribal region providing the Taliban direct access to North Waziristan and Khyber agencies bordering Peshawar.

Meanwhile, two headless bodies of missing tribal elders were found days after they were abducted by suspected Taliban, political administration said. The militants kidnapped six elders and had killed at least three of them.

The TTP have been under pressure in their main stronghold, South Waziristan Agency, since the army launched its ground offensive there in October last year.

 

[fatman17]

US offers legal justification for drone strikes for the first time

WASHINGTON: The US government for the first time has offered a legal justification of its drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban militants, citing the right to “self-defence” under international law. State Department legal adviser Harold Koh laid out the legal argument for the strikes in a speech on Thursday, referring to “targeting” of al Qaeda and Taliban without mentioning Pakistan or where the raids are carried out. Koh said the US was in “an armed conflict” with al Qaeda, the Taliban and its affiliates as a result of the September 11 attacks “and may use force consistent with its inherent right to self-defence under international law”. “With respect to the subject of targeting, which has been much commented upon in the media and international legal circles, there are obviously limits to what I can say publicly,” he said. “What I can say is that it is the considered view of this administration – and it has certainly been my experience during my time as legal adviser – that US targeting practices, including lethal operations conducted with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles, comply with all applicable law, including the laws of war.” Koh, a fierce critic of former US president George Bush’s policies in the fight against al Qaeda before he took his post, said, “In all of our operations involving the use of force” the administration was “committed by word and deed to conducting ourselves in accordance with all applicable law”. afp

 

[waraich66]

http://www.criticalthreats.org/site...ration_Rah-e-Nijat_Phase_One_High_Quality.pdf

 

[ajpirzada]

Pakistan's army chief says militants on run
08:43, April 02, 2010
Email | Print | Subscribe | Comments | Forum

Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani Thursday told tribal elders that the security forces will eliminate fleeing militants with the help of tribesmen.

"The security forces have destroyed bases of the brutal and selfish terrorists on the soil of South Wazirstan tribal region," General Kayani told a jirga or tribal council of Mehsood tribe in a letter.

The letter, titled "Promise with Mehsood brothers" with General Kayani photograph, Pakistan's national flag and army's monogram, was distributed among a jirga in Tank, a city near South Waziristan.

"I know that officers and soldiers of Pakistan's army rendered sacrifices for peace in your area but you also sacrificed of lives, houses and peace and frustrated the plans of anti-statements," the general said.

The security forces had launched a major ground and air offensive against thousands of militants of Tehrik-e-Taliban in South Waziristan in October 2009.

The jirga was called by the local administration of South Waziristan to discuss repatriation of thousands of Mehsood tribesmen, who were displaced due to fighting.

"In the next spring you people will be in your area and the government of Pakistan has allocated a large amount for the developmental projects," the army chief said in his letter.

He said that the projects include repairing rugged roads, building new roads, small dams for agriculture, electricity and education.

"I salute to the courage of brave Mehsood tribes and assure that Pakistan army will do anything for peace and tranquillity in your area," General Kayani said.

Source: Xinhua

Pakistan's army chief says militants on run - People's Daily Online

 

[fatima.ahtesham]

Thanks for sharing this article

 

[air marshal]

 

[fatman17]

US, Pakistan alter approach on Waziristan

* Army says operation in NWA this spring will be impractical, strategically unwise
* US official says Pakistanis understand ‘culture, history and geography’ better

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: A few miles from the isolated garrison town of Razmak, a shallow, east-west gorge marks the administrative border between South and North Waziristan. In US eyes, it is also the dividing line between the good Pakistan that cooperates with American counterterrorism goals and the intransigent one that charts its own course, the Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

To launch a major campaign in North Waziristan this spring – as the Obama administration has proposed – would be impractical and strategically unwise, the army says.

US officials have expressed frustration over Pakistan’s reluctance. But a rare visit to the restricted region suggested that the two sides are trying to find common ground in addressing what Washington sees as the epicentre of the terrorist threat.

“There has to be a balance between foreign requirements and the local environment,” said Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj Gen Athar Abbas. “I think what the Americans have come to understand is that when (their) options are not working, maybe it is time to try another way.”

US officials continue to think that Pakistan’s reluctance stems largely from its belief that the Afghan Taliban could be useful in influencing future events in Afghanistan. But after months of publicly questioning Pakistan’s motives, Washington appears to have decided to try a different tack, voicing new appreciation for Pakistan’s accomplishments in South Waziristan and other operations last year.

Understanding: “We need to give them credit,” a senior US official said of the Pakistanis, and trust that they understand the “culture, history and geography” of North Waziristan better than Washington does.

The US believes Afghanistan’s Haqqani network – headed by Jalaluddin Haqqani – is based in North Waziristan, along with other such groups, and has urged Islamabad to move against them. “He is on our target list,” an intelligence official said, but “we’ve raided his madrassa five times” and have not found him there.

Besides, Maj Gen Abbas said, “Haqqani is an Afghan. Our intelligence says he spends at least half his time in Afghanistan’s Khost, Paktika and Paktia provinces.” He and other officials question that if Haqqani were so easy to catch, why have the Americans, with their superior surveillance, not found him?

Officials acknowledge a long-standing relationship with Haqqani but deny that they still have control over him.

 

[fawwaxs]

Operation to go on till militants eliminated

SWAT/KHAR: Army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani has said the army will stay in Malakand division till the elimination of last militant and restoration of peace in the region.

He was addressing a jirga of elders, Ulema and notables at the Circuit House in Mingora during a visit to Swat on Wednesday. He was accompanied by Peshawar Corps Commander Lt-Gen Yasin Malak, incharge of Sawt operation Maj-Gen Ashfaq Nadeem, incharge of Upper Swat operation Maj-Gen Javed Iqbal, Commissioner of Malakand Fazal Karim Khattak and other officers.

Gen Kayani said the militants had tried to establish a parallel government and challenged the writ of government in Swat and Malakand, but security forces in cooperation with local people defeated them in a short span of time.

He said that over two million people had been displaced but the forces made history by repatriating them to their areas in just three months. He said the people of Swat would not be left at the mercy of militants, adding that army personnel would protect their lives and property.

He said the detained militant leaders would be presented to the local court to decide their fate.The army chief said that peace committees would be strengthened to effectively frustrate militants’ designs to regroup.

He said the army had started rebuilding of educational institutions and taken up developmental projects which would be completed soon.

Gen Kayani inaugurated a government school in Shamozai. Speaking on the occasion, he assured local people that more solar energy units would be set up in the area. He laid floral wreath on the memorial of martyrs and offered Fateha at Shuhada Park in Saidu Sharif. He also visited the public library and orphanage in the town.

Our correspondent in Bajaur adds: The army chief said the backbone of militants had been broken and positive results had been achieved in the Bajaur tribal region.

Addressing a jirga of elders of Tarkhani and Othmankhel tribes in Khar on Wednesday, Gen Kayani praised the role of tribal people during the military operations.

He was accompanied by Lt-Gen Asif Yasin Malak and Inspector General of Frontier Corps Maj-Gen Tariq Khan.

Gen Kayani said that militants had been eliminated, writ of government had been established and now the tribal region would see progress and prosperity.

The army chief met soldiers and praised their role in flushing out militants from the region.

 

[fawwaxs]

 

[air marshal]

Military convoy ambushed in North Waziristan
Friday, 23 Apr, 2010

MIRAMSHAH: Seven soldiers and at least sixteen were injured as militants ambushed an army convoy in North Waziristan on Friday.

Two officers were among the dead in the ambush in Dattakhel, a Taliban stronghold and recent target of US drone missile strikes, about 20 kilometres (10 miles) from North Waziristan's main town Miramshah.

“It was a pre-planned attack. Dozens of militants first fired several rockets and then used other weapons and guns,” an intelligence official based in Miranshah said, adding that four military vehicles were destroyed.

A military statement said the convoy was on a routine mission from Miramshah to Dattakhel.

“In the ambush, seven soldiers embraced shahadat (martyrdom), including an officer and a junior commissioned officer, while 16 soldiers were injured,” the statement said. Two of the wounded are in a critical condition.

This is the first major attack against the military in North Waziristan this year, as so far the major attacks and fighting has taken place in South waziristan which was the focus of Operation Rah-e-Nijat, which was aimed at breaking the hold of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.

According to local sources, many of the Taliban groups had fled South Waziristan to North waziristan, and many of these groups include Chechen and Arab fighter a well.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Military convoy ambushed in North Waziristan

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

RIP to the Martyrs; the sons and defenders of the soil

May the injured comrades make speedy recovery, so they can get back to the field and do what they do BEST.




death to the enemies of Pakistan

 

[air marshal]

 

[air marshal]

Army faces yet another challenge
Friday, 23 Apr, 2010

ISLAMABAD: After clearing some of Pakistan's most dangerous Taliban insurgents from their South Waziristan bastion, the army faces another decisive battle - persuading tribal leaders it's safe to return.

Ethnic Pashtun tribal elders have historically held sway in South Waziristan and their return would be a vote of confidence in the government, which is under mounting pressure to stabilise Pakistan - a front-line state in the US war on militancy.

Last October, a Pakistan army offensive destroyed Taliban bases, killed hundreds of fighters and forced many others to flee South Waziristan.

But discussions between the state and members of South Waziristan's dominant Mehsud tribe on repatriation are stalled, said Senator Saleh Shah, who has taken part in the discussions.

Tribal elders, mindful that the Taliban assassinated many in their ranks, are demanding security guarantees.

The military has promised to help but it also wants their help in tracking down 370 Taliban “terrorists”, raising concerns that the group still poses risks.

“If security forces can't arrest them? How can we do that?” Shah, a prominent member of the Mehsud tribe, told Reuters. “How can we go back unless the area is cleared? This is not our land any more. It's a battleground.”

Establishing long-term security in South Waziristan, the biggest of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) in the northwest, is crucial in efforts to stabilise both Pakistan and Afghanistan, where an Afghan Taliban insurgency is raging.

The Pashtun border area is a global militant hub used by the Taliban and al Qaeda. Afghan militants operating from sanctuaries in Pakistan routinely cross the border to attack US-led Nato troops in Afghanistan.

Crackdowns have weakened the Pakistani Taliban. But they often melt away during army assaults and sometimes return to former strongholds such as South Waziristan, where the military may not have the resources to stay for long.

“We have told them (state officials) that we are not going back unless we are completely sure that it is safe to return,” said Malik Haji Mohammad, a Mehsud tribal elder.

Pakistani governments have never had much authority in Fata, areas hostile to outside interference. So getting tribal leaders to go back could help pacify a region the US believes could make or break the battle against militancy.

Under a system inherited from colonial Britain, a government “political agent” administers through tribal elders.

But upheaval has shattered tribal networks. In the 1980s, the impoverished area was swept up in the Pakistan- and US-backed war against Soviet occupation in Afghanistan.

After a US-led invasion defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in 2001, many fighters flocked to Fataand established bases. The Taliban nearly destroyed the traditional leadership structure, beheading and shooting of tribal elders.

So elders who return have to start from scratch. Haunted by the carnage, people who fled have more pressing concerns.

“I don't want to be killed. I don't want my children to be killed,” said Qaisar Khan, who left a clothing business behind in South Waziristan.

Tribal leaders also want compensation for damages inflicted by fighting. Shah estimates that almost one-third of the agencies' houses were destroyed.

“How can you expect people to defend themselves and help the government capture militants while living in tents?,” asked Shah.

Army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said each displaced person will be paid 25,000 rupees ($297) and two months of rations on their return to South Waziristan.

But dozens of community meetings with the government over the past few months have made little progress, tribal officials said, delays the government can't afford as it struggles to end contain Taliban suicide bombings in other parts of the country.

“The Taliban will definitely try to go back to South Waziristan. They are waiting for the army to withdraw or for the tribesmen to return and then they can hide among them. They are biding their time,” said Rahimullah Yousafzai, a Taliban expert.

DAWN.COM | Pakistan | Army faces yet another challenge