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Pakistani Forces against Militants.

11 militants, 3 security officials killed in Khyber

Warplanes attacked militant positions in Khyber Agency, killing five terrorists and wounding three others, officials said, six more militants were killed in a clash that also claimed lives of two security officials in the restive tribal region.

Another security official died and five others were hurt in a blast inside a paramilitary camp near Fort Slope in Bara tehsil when an explosive device in a vehicle, seized from the base camp of Mehsud scouts here the other day, went off. “The blast destroyed five rooms inside the Fort Slope and killed a security official and hurt five others,” said a spokesperson for the Frontier Corps. Intelligence officials however disputed the figure, and said two law enforcers were killed and seven others injured in the blast at the paramilitary camp. The exact death toll could not be independently verified as reporters had limited access to the remote tribal area. The injured, identified as Israel Khan, Ahmad, Zia, Ahmad Khan, Amen and Abdullah, were shifted to a military hospital in Peshawar for medical aid, sources said while adding the victim was identified as Akhtar Zada. Relief and rescue teams were sent to the site. More casualties were feared. In Bara tehsil’s Tirah Valley, jet fighters pounded three militant hideouts killing five terrorists and wounding three others. Sources said an aircraft targeted Tirah Valley’s Kukikhel area and destroyed Taliban hideouts.
11 militants, 3 security officials killed in Khyber | The Nation
 
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At least 15 suspected militants killed in Orakzai, Khyber regions

militanthideout_bajaur_reut-670.jpg


PESHAWAR: Pakistan’s security forces conducted operations in the Khyber and Orakzai tribal regions killing 15 suspected militants and destroying three militant hideouts, DawnNews reported on Sunday.

At least seven suspected militants were killed during a security forces operation conducted in Sipah Lakhkar area of Khyber tribal region.

Military jets bombarded several targets in Mamozai area of Orakzai tribal region’s Tirah vally destroying three suspected hideouts.

Eight alleged militants including a key commander were killed during the blitz in Arghanju and Sama Bazar areas, according to Assistant Political Agent Muhammad Rafiq

In another unrelated incident two CD shopes were blow up in Mian Mandi Bazar in Haleemzai area of Mohmand tribal region.
 
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A good article on terrorism in Pakistan.

A war of choice


Shahzad Chaudhry

Tuesday, March 05, 2013


A discerning disaggregation of the phenomenon of militancy among the groups that have, over decades, taken root in central and southern Punjab makes for an important study. This is especially so at a time when their widening ambit of deadly influence only seems to be compounding itself in Pakistan.

Three groups stand out in identity, all with roots in Punjab. The oldest Lashkar-e-Jhangvi/Sipah-e-Sahaba/Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (its political face) – the LeJ, SSP and ASWJ are mutations of the same sectarian outfit – has roots in and around the Jhang district. This group targeted Shias in and around these districts and was caught subsequently in a tit-for-tat killing war with the competing Shia militant group, the Sipah-e-Muhammad.

How the same group is now engaged in Quetta against the Hazaras makes for another complicated reading of the underpinnings that have continued to drive the internal environment within Pakistan.

The two other groups, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad had linkages in Jammu and Kashmir where organisations sympathetic to their cause were spawned as Kashmiri Muslims intensified their freedom struggle popularly called the 1989 uprising in Jammu and Kashmir. That these groups engaged themselves in Kashmir is an accepted argument.

When in 2003, President Musharraf announced to the world that no further cross-border infiltration of Indian held territories would be permitted from the Pakistani side of the LoC, the space available to these groups gradually decreased. Pakistan has had to pay a heavy price for such policy change when the same groups diversified into activities alongside the Taliban – sometimes the deadlier component of the larger Taliban conglomerate – fighting both in Afghanistan, and against the state in Pakistan.

Sectarian warfare has always been considered an irritant in Pakistan’s politico-security calculus. Never confronted to its fullest, the preferred approach mostly has been to let these sleeping demons lie rather than raking latent sensitivities. As long as society was driven by existential pacifism it served the purpose, but with greater external influences in puritanical Islam making inroads all conventions were challenged, including the highly vulnerable Shia-Sunni equation.

Unable to thwart ideological activism, Pakistan finds itself burdened under yet another contraption of militant Islam, exemplified in repeated attacks on the Shia community, that weigh it down.

There are other factors that largely extenuate the singular failure of the state in fighting off the sectarian menace. These include its utter ineptitude to grasp the inherent implications of raking vulnerabilities when faith is exploited to formulate a policy of non-conventional response to security challenges.

It is true that even when sectarianism seemed a seasonal beast it was tolerated by the political class of Pakistan. It not only ensured effective political support to established parties, but also offered winning candidates from their regions of perpetual influence adding up to the numbers in competing political parties.

Even today when simple sectarianism has mutated into active terrorism, there are larger issues of political gamesmanship within Punjab that tend to obfuscate the deadliness that afflicts other territories such as Balochistan.

Another factor is that a secessionist nationalist element has gained strength in the last decade in Balochistan. Though still relatively small, it seems to have a presence larger than its true expanse and yet it has kept the state occupied.

There remain various contributory causes to the phenomenon, including the failure of conception in both the military and the political institutions and in how Balochistan has been poorly governed. Yet, the most visible entity that seems to be engaged in fighting off such secession is the military, the politicians having washed their hands off it sans a larger sense of policy attention which could ameliorate some alienation.

To a re-energised democracy – which Pakistan is now – a counterinsurgent application of military force, be it the army or the FC, bucks the trend of what is a patently modernist sensibility. Human rights groups, a proactive judiciary, a boisterous media and a laissez-faire polity have allowed the confrontation in Balochistan to become a military vs nationalists war.

Incessant criticism of the military and its agencies, either in the form of the ‘missing persons’ issue or about the use of force against nationalist groups, is used persistently to question the military’s credibility. While such resistance aims at limiting the military’s preponderant influence over policy formulation, an unintended consequence is to also restrict its space for effective operation against these secessionist groups.

Under such restrictive regimes of operation, when a secessionist movement rages on without check, and the military’s power and that of the Frontier Corps – the two contending forces – is rescinded under judicial scrutiny, these forces allegedly resort to using militant groups such as the LeJ to fight the war and save the state from the larger threat of fragmentation. That is no easy logic to validate any blood – least of all of the helpless Hazaras – but the contributors to this consequence are many and all need to take the blame. Isn’t the incumbent IG known to have had links with the LeJ while posted in Punjab?

The FC’s current duties in aid of civil power, as determined by the political authorities in Balochistan, are to control borders and to check smuggling of arms and ammunition – nothing else. Checking the smuggling of all other commodities comes under the provincial law-enforcement agencies, as part of internal law and order. Why groups such as the LeJ then resort to killing the Hazara lies in the doctrinal genesis of their formation in the first place, as much as in the freedom with which these groups operate under patronage.

There is a popular belief that Balochistan is also undergoing a subtle proxy war between Shia Iran and the Sunni Gulf states. It may all point to the creation and support of the Jundallah by the CIA in Balochistan to intrude into Iran; this may have alternately given cause to the contending presence of mutually inimical forces. And then along came the money from the Gulf and various other Sunni contraptions, including the LeJ, to stage another theatre of gory blood. The Hazaras became the unfortunate fodder for this. Is India too partaking off this incredibly combustible mix? Why not?

There cannot be a more convenient moment than the opportunity offered by the current context to look for pay back for Pakistan’s alleged involvement in Kashmir. Such tragic manifestation of deep politico-military misconception can only be dealt with by the application of an equally wide-spectrum politico-military correction in policy and implementation that should include responsibility and ownership by all facets of the state to treat the malaise in Balochistan.

Disaggregation will help in understanding the underlying nuances, thereby enabling the right remedy. Clubbing it all under one banner can be counterproductive and grievously harmful.

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force and served as its deputy chief of staff.

Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com

A war of choice - Shahzad Chaudhry
 
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A good article on terrorism in Pakistan.

A war of choice


Shahzad Chaudhry

Tuesday, March 05, 2013


A discerning disaggregation of the phenomenon of militancy among the groups that have, over decades, taken root in central and southern Punjab makes for an important study. This is especially so at a time when their widening ambit of deadly influence only seems to be compounding itself in Pakistan.

Three groups stand out in identity, all with roots in Punjab. The oldest Lashkar-e-Jhangvi/Sipah-e-Sahaba/Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (its political face) – the LeJ, SSP and ASWJ are mutations of the same sectarian outfit – has roots in and around the Jhang district. This group targeted Shias in and around these districts and was caught subsequently in a tit-for-tat killing war with the competing Shia militant group, the Sipah-e-Muhammad.

How the same group is now engaged in Quetta against the Hazaras makes for another complicated reading of the underpinnings that have continued to drive the internal environment within Pakistan.

The two other groups, the Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad had linkages in Jammu and Kashmir where organisations sympathetic to their cause were spawned as Kashmiri Muslims intensified their freedom struggle popularly called the 1989 uprising in Jammu and Kashmir. That these groups engaged themselves in Kashmir is an accepted argument.

When in 2003, President Musharraf announced to the world that no further cross-border infiltration of Indian held territories would be permitted from the Pakistani side of the LoC, the space available to these groups gradually decreased. Pakistan has had to pay a heavy price for such policy change when the same groups diversified into activities alongside the Taliban – sometimes the deadlier component of the larger Taliban conglomerate – fighting both in Afghanistan, and against the state in Pakistan.

Sectarian warfare has always been considered an irritant in Pakistan’s politico-security calculus. Never confronted to its fullest, the preferred approach mostly has been to let these sleeping demons lie rather than raking latent sensitivities. As long as society was driven by existential pacifism it served the purpose, but with greater external influences in puritanical Islam making inroads all conventions were challenged, including the highly vulnerable Shia-Sunni equation.

Unable to thwart ideological activism, Pakistan finds itself burdened under yet another contraption of militant Islam, exemplified in repeated attacks on the Shia community, that weigh it down.

There are other factors that largely extenuate the singular failure of the state in fighting off the sectarian menace. These include its utter ineptitude to grasp the inherent implications of raking vulnerabilities when faith is exploited to formulate a policy of non-conventional response to security challenges.

It is true that even when sectarianism seemed a seasonal beast it was tolerated by the political class of Pakistan. It not only ensured effective political support to established parties, but also offered winning candidates from their regions of perpetual influence adding up to the numbers in competing political parties.

Even today when simple sectarianism has mutated into active terrorism, there are larger issues of political gamesmanship within Punjab that tend to obfuscate the deadliness that afflicts other territories such as Balochistan.

Another factor is that a secessionist nationalist element has gained strength in the last decade in Balochistan. Though still relatively small, it seems to have a presence larger than its true expanse and yet it has kept the state occupied.

There remain various contributory causes to the phenomenon, including the failure of conception in both the military and the political institutions and in how Balochistan has been poorly governed. Yet, the most visible entity that seems to be engaged in fighting off such secession is the military, the politicians having washed their hands off it sans a larger sense of policy attention which could ameliorate some alienation.

To a re-energised democracy – which Pakistan is now – a counterinsurgent application of military force, be it the army or the FC, bucks the trend of what is a patently modernist sensibility. Human rights groups, a proactive judiciary, a boisterous media and a laissez-faire polity have allowed the confrontation in Balochistan to become a military vs nationalists war.

Incessant criticism of the military and its agencies, either in the form of the ‘missing persons’ issue or about the use of force against nationalist groups, is used persistently to question the military’s credibility. While such resistance aims at limiting the military’s preponderant influence over policy formulation, an unintended consequence is to also restrict its space for effective operation against these secessionist groups.

Under such restrictive regimes of operation, when a secessionist movement rages on without check, and the military’s power and that of the Frontier Corps – the two contending forces – is rescinded under judicial scrutiny, these forces allegedly resort to using militant groups such as the LeJ to fight the war and save the state from the larger threat of fragmentation. That is no easy logic to validate any blood – least of all of the helpless Hazaras – but the contributors to this consequence are many and all need to take the blame. Isn’t the incumbent IG known to have had links with the LeJ while posted in Punjab?

The FC’s current duties in aid of civil power, as determined by the political authorities in Balochistan, are to control borders and to check smuggling of arms and ammunition – nothing else. Checking the smuggling of all other commodities comes under the provincial law-enforcement agencies, as part of internal law and order. Why groups such as the LeJ then resort to killing the Hazara lies in the doctrinal genesis of their formation in the first place, as much as in the freedom with which these groups operate under patronage.

There is a popular belief that Balochistan is also undergoing a subtle proxy war between Shia Iran and the Sunni Gulf states. It may all point to the creation and support of the Jundallah by the CIA in Balochistan to intrude into Iran; this may have alternately given cause to the contending presence of mutually inimical forces. And then along came the money from the Gulf and various other Sunni contraptions, including the LeJ, to stage another theatre of gory blood. The Hazaras became the unfortunate fodder for this. Is India too partaking off this incredibly combustible mix? Why not?

There cannot be a more convenient moment than the opportunity offered by the current context to look for pay back for Pakistan’s alleged involvement in Kashmir. Such tragic manifestation of deep politico-military misconception can only be dealt with by the application of an equally wide-spectrum politico-military correction in policy and implementation that should include responsibility and ownership by all facets of the state to treat the malaise in Balochistan.

Disaggregation will help in understanding the underlying nuances, thereby enabling the right remedy. Clubbing it all under one banner can be counterproductive and grievously harmful.

The writer is a retired air-vice marshal of the Pakistan Air Force and served as its deputy chief of staff.

Email: shhzdchdhry@yahoo.com

A war of choice - Shahzad Chaudhry

why the AVM never made it to ACM is befuddling....!
 
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..Insight: Police chief a tough referee in Pakistani militant's home town

By Matthew Green | Reuters



RAHIM YAR KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Sohail Zafar Chattha set the tone for his tenure as police chief in a corner of rural Pakistan by launching Operation Clean Up, an audacious assault on river bandits featuring a home-made floating bunker he nicknamed "The Shark".

Eighteen months on, the no-nonsense officer faces a tougher test: keeping the peace in the home town of Malik Ishaq, a founder of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), the urban guerrilla force targeting the country's Shi'ite Muslim sect.

"I'm not a Scotland Yard officer. This is hard-core policing," Chattha said at his official residence in Rahim Yar Khan, the main town in a district of sugar cane plantations and mango orchards along the Indus river.

"I'm a fair referee, and a referee who sometimes shows the red card. You break the law, then you will be taken to task."

Since the start of the year, militants have staged devastating bombings in Shi'ite neighborhoods in the southern cities of Quetta and Karachi, seeking to enflame tension in a country where a violent militant fringe has eroded once robust traditions of tolerance.

While the carnage has caught world attention, Reuters can reveal the bombings have fuelled a little known but dangerous trend: growing sectarian unrest in parts of Punjab province, home to more than half of Pakistan's population of 180 million, and a key battleground in national politics.

Western allies have long been anxious about the presence of Taliban fighters on the Afghan frontier, but a series of flare-ups in the eastern flatlands has revived troubling questions over why authorities have not done more to stop militancy permeating Pakistan's agricultural and industrial heartland.

The issue has gained renewed significance ahead of general elections due in May, in which a former prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, whose Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party controls Punjab, is a leading contender for national power.

In the past month, Chattha has been forced to defuse an unusual spike in incidents of shootings and beatings involving Ishaq's followers and members of the Shi'ite community in Rahim Yar Khan, a placid-looking district of more than four million people where Muslim sects once lived in harmony.

While nobody has been killed in the fracas, and there is no appetite for bloodshed among the vast majority of residents, people here say tension is at its highest since a far worse bout of sectarian violence erupted in Punjab in the 1990s.

Punjab's administration ordered Chattha to put Ishaq in jail for a month under public order laws in February after LeJ claimed responsibility for a series of blasts in Quetta that killed almost 200 people. Police say they have arrested more than 150 of his suspected sympathizers.

But with religious radicals campaigning openly in the province ahead of the polls, it has fallen to Chattha to ensure that a spark in the farming town of Rahim Yar Khan does not ignite a powder-keg in Punjab.

"It's a game of nerves: You have to be assertive, and non-partisan," said Chattha, an articulate man who enjoys discussing political philosophy as much as dissecting the finer points of policing Punjab. "It could spiral out of control."

"IT'S ALREADY STARTED"

Chattha's troubles can be traced to July 2011, when judges ruled there was insufficient evidence to continue to detain Ishaq who had spent 14 years in jail on 44 murder charges. Ishaq returned to Rahim Yar Khan to a rapturous welcome from followers brandishing assault rifles.

A former cigarette dealer, Ishaq co-founded LeJ in 1996 with the support of Pakistani intelligence, which nurtured an array of hardline Sunni Muslim groups as proxy forces.

Since his release, Ishaq has sought to leverage his position as vice-president of Ahle Sunnat Wal Jama'at (ASWJ), an increasingly strident but faction-ridden anti-Shi'ite party, to carve out a niche in national politics.

Ishaq's son Usman, who is also an ASWJ activist, said his father was not involved in militancy and merely wanted to warn people about what they believed were insulting practices followed by Shi'ites, known in Pakistan as Shias.

"Malik Ishaq and his organization have nothing to do with killing, murder and terrorist activities," Usman Ishaq said, speaking by telephone after going into hiding following his father's most recent arrest. "We believe in harmony and peace."

Tension flared in Rahim Yar Khan on February 10 when Ishaq sent his followers to hold a rally near the village of Rukan Pur, Chattha said. Armed Shi'ite residents set up firing positions with sandbags on rooftops in anticipation of Ishaq's arrival, while dozens of his supporters gathered in a nearby field.

Chattha said he deployed two armored vehicles and scores of police to act as a buffer, but Shi'ites fired shots from the village, wounding two of Ishaq's men. A series of beatings by both sides followed, and then about 30 of Ishaq's supporters roared into Rahim Yar Khan on motorbikes.

Shi'ites said the mob beat six members of their sect in the street.

"One of them shouted: 'He's also a Shia! Kill him!'," said Syed Abbas Raza Naqvi, a travel agent, who was attacked while driving his motorbike with his three children riding pillion.

"I would have been killed if my kids hadn't begged them for mercy," he said, displaying welts on his back.

Naseem Abbas, a barber, said the gang burst into his shop several hours later and pistol-whipped him around the head, while chanting "Shia infidel! Shia infidel!".

Scenes of the charred aftermath of the Quetta and Karachi blasts have revived memories of a bombing that killed almost 20 people in a Shi'ite procession at a nearby village in early 2012, leaving the community even warier of Ishaq's followers.

"He (Ishaq) has no popular support, but as an organization they are becoming more influential," said Shiekh Manzoor Hussain, a prominent Shi'ite leader, speaking at a mosque complex in Rahim Yar Khan fronted by a towering gold-tinted archway.

"If he is allowed to move freely there will be a lot of bloodshed, killing and chaos - it's started already," he said.

"CLEAN UP"

Even as the state has fumbled for a response to Ishaq, Chattha has proved he can take an unflinching approach to crime when given a free hand by Punjab's provincial government.

In Operation Clean Up, Chattha ordered his men to fortify a barge and affix four 75-horsepower Yamaha engines and a pair of anti-aircraft guns - creating the "Rahim Yar Khan Shark". Awed brigands capitulated and his men became the first police to set foot on their island hideout in 37 years.

"It was very strong, it could conquer anything," Chattha said, flicking through photos of the squat-looking craft and himself leading the mission on horseback. "It was a military operation, we camped for two months on the river."

As a result, Chattha said the number of reported kidnappings in the district fell from 456 in 2010 to zero last year.

Human rights groups, however, suspect Punjab police routinely commit extra-judicial killings of suspects - partly out of frustration at judges' frequent failure to convict.

In 2011, up to 337 people were killed across the country in what are termed "encounters" between police and criminals, according to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, which questions whether officers often use excessive force.

Chattha says such allegations are baseless and that the deaths of five of his men in clashes with gangsters since he took over in Rahim Yar Khan in September 2011 underscore the danger they face.

Chattha's combative approach to conventional outlaws throws the Punjab government's failure to control sectarian hate-mongering into sharper relief. He estimates Ishaq's inner circle in Rahim Yar Khan numbers fewer than 20 hardened members, only a handful of whom have received serious weapons training.

Any officer or judge who dares to confront militants can expect swift retaliation against themselves or their family.

But critics of Punjab's government believe there is a more fundamental reason why sterner action has not been taken: a reluctance by Sharif's PML-N to antagonize Ishaq's albeit limited support base ahead of the polls.

Rehman Malik, Pakistan's interior minister, whose Pakistan People's Party is the main rival of the PML-N, last week questioned why the provincial government had allowed Punjab to become a "safe haven" for LeJ.

Rana Sanaullah, Punjab's law minister, who appeared alongside ASWJ leaders at a by-election rally in 2010, said the PML-N had no need to turn to religious groups for support in Punjab.

Sanaullah said authorities had found no link to connect Ishaq to blasts in Quetta or Karachi and that Malik's remarks were politically motivated.

"It's a conspiracy to trigger hatred of Punjab amongst other provinces," Sanaullah told Reuters.

(Additional reporting by Asim Tanveer in MULTAN and Mubasher Bukhari in LAHORE; Editing by Michael Georgy and Robert Birsel)


need more of such cops!!!!
 
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ORAKZAI AGENCY: Twenty-five militants have been killed as jet fighters on Thursday targeted militant hideouts in upper Orakzai Agency.

Earlier in the morning a security forces convoy was targeted in Nadar Mela with an IED, which resulted in the death of one soldier while three others were injured.

Assistant political agent Rafiq Mohmand told Dawn.Com that the militant stronghold of Gundai Mela in Mamozai has been taken over by security forces. Eight militants were killed during the offensive.

He said that during air strikes in Inzar Mela, Jandri Kalle and Adu Khel area of Mamozai, four militant hideouts were destroyed while 12 militants were also killed, adding “those killed are mostly affiliated with the TTP.”

Five militants were also killed in another clash.

Officials also believe that the fall of Gundai Mela to the security forces is a huge success due to the strategic location of the village.

The adjoining mountainous region, near the Dogar village of Kurram Agency, is also a key weapon supply route for Orakzai militants.
 
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Shocking! Criminals? in Karachi?

yeah you heard right ... but what gave you shock general ? i dont know which england you live in, i live in london and last week, if you ever read newspaper of listen to news, 5,000 officers of Metropolitan police conducted raids in london, ... so calm down it happens .. dont worry ..
 
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helicopter_army_tribal_670_3.jpg



PESHAWAR: Eleven militants were killed in action by security forces in the northwestern tribal regions of Khyber and Upper Orakzai, DawnNews reported on Friday.

Also during the operations, security forces destroyed several militant hideouts.

In Khyber tribal region’s Tirah Valley, the forces used fighter jets to attack insurgent positions, killing three militants and destroying several of their hideouts.

In Orakzai’s Nindar Mela and Utmela areas, eight militants were killed during shelling by fighter jets and three insurgent hideouts were also destroyed.

Orakzai and Khyber are among Pakistan’s seven semi-autonomous tribal regions in the northwest, where Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda-linked militants are said to have carved out strongholds.

Eleven militants killed in Orakzai, Khyber | Pakistan | DAWN.COM
 
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I dont give a hoot to ppp, however they have put the stats in one banner and is important for members to propagate awareness of these sacrifices



Pakistan's ad in Wall Street Journal
 
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Bara lawlessness a bitter pill for security forces

From the Newspaper | Zulfiqar Ali.


PESHAWAR, March 9: Despite multiple tactical operations, the militancy-hit Bara tehsil of Khyber Agency has become a bitter pill for security forces and the civil administration to swallow or throw it up.

Apparently, this 1,000 square kilometers area, adjacent to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provincial capital, seems to be battlefield for the militants and the security forces, but the latter equates it with the stronghold of underworld, including drug barons, smugglers, kidnappers, militants etc.

“There are so many stakeholders and mafias including drug traffickers, militants, smugglers, absconders, kidnappers in Bara. Some elements in political administration and paramilitary forces may have also ganged up with these mafias,” said a senior security official when asked about lingering issue of militancy that plagued Bara since 2004.

Sitting behind a wide table, made of sheesham (an indigenous plant), the official spoke extensively on current situation in Fata, particularly in Bara. The off-the-record discussion arranged in a cozy office lasted for almost two hours.

He was satisfied with the situation in Bajaur, Mohmand, Kurram and Orakzai, Landi Kotal and Jamrud tehsils parts of Khyber Agency and was very confident that there was no chance of resurgence of militancy in these areas at all.

He said night curfew had been lifted from entire Bajaur about two months ago and except few families all internally displaced persons had gone back to their homes. There were no restrictions on the people’s movement and they could go anywhere they wanted, he asserted.

Mohmand Agency, one of the seven tribal districts, according to him was also fine and all the damaged posts along the porous Afghan border had been reconstructed.

“We have proper border security management in these areas and there is no chance of incursion from the other side of the border,” he claimed.

He disclosed that security forces had recovered five tons explosives from a hideout in Bajaur and militants had admitted that collection of huge size of explosives took almost three years.

The official was looking upset about situation in Bara portrayed in media particularly Alam Godar incident in January last in which locals claimed 15 civilians were killed by security forces in retaliation. The militants were using local people very tactfully against security forces to protect their interests, he said.

He said Bara was very complicated, because of its location, demography and involvement of so many players that made task more difficult.

The official took credit for busting Abdullah Azam Brigade, a militant outfit operated in Jamrud tehsil which often attacked convoys on Peshawar-Torkham Highway. He also said a school’s principal was arrested in the same area who had established manufacturing unit of improvised explosive device in the government school.

“People always blame security forces for attacks on civilians in Bara which is incorrect. When security forces plan crack down on militants, then hue and cry begins. Should the government pulls out troops and leaves Bara for these mafias,” he questioned.

“I can take all IDPs back to Bara tomorrow if local tribes accept responsibilities assigned to them under the Frontier Crimes Regulation, which is law of the area,” he replied when asked about timeframe for the return of displaced people.

He also advised the parents to stop their youngsters from joining militant groups and other criminals.

The Fata Disaster Management Authority said 65,435 families (approximately 520,000 individuals) have been displaced from Khyber Agency majority of them living off camps in Peshawar.

The official, who has vast experience about security dynamics of Fata, said the plan had been worked out to plug important routes used by militants. “Major action against militants is on the card and it will be very successful,” he said.

Additional troops have been deployed in the area and soldiers have been readjusted in 18 security posts set up in areas separating Bara from Peshawar.

He brushed aside that security forces had personal agenda to prolong stay in Fata.

“Total cleanup of Bara including Tirah Valley is not possible in near future but IDPs from Shalobar area will go back to their homes very soon,” he said.


PPP is desperate - no one in the west believes in these figures.
 
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At least 33 militants killed in Khyber’s Tirah valley
Zahir Shah Sherazi | 8 mins ago
PESHAWAR: Two suicide blasts carried out by the Ansarul Islam (AI)and bombardment from military jets on Mar 18 claimed the lives of at least 33 militants, including a key-militants commander of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and injured many others, sources told Dawn.com.

Militants of the banned TTP occupied a centre of the Ansarul Islam in Bagh-Maidan area of Khyber tribal region’s Tirah valley on Mar 18

A hidden suicide bomber blew himself up killing and injuring several militants.

Another suicide bomber detonated his explosives during rescue efforts for the victims of the first blast.

A total of 25 militants, including a key militant commander of the proscribed TTP, were killed in the two blast whereas many others were injured.

A few hours later Pakistan military jets bombarded a nearby area killing eight more suspected militants.

A total of 33 militants were reported as dead and numerous others as injured by tribal sources.

Most of the victims were associated with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan militants organisation, sources added.

Moreover at least 60 suspected militants were taken into custody from Darra Adamkhel over involvement in the Judicial Complex attack in Peshawar that took place on.
 
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Military Actions

•According to an Express Tribune article, the Pakistani military is increasing its offensive against the TTP and Lashkar-e-Islam, a TTP ally, in the Tirah valley, Khyber agency. The military is imposing curfews and increasing air strikes in the valley, and is shelling militant strongholds from areas surrounding the valley. The majority of the shelling and bombing is “concentrated on Tirah, the town of Bara and Ghalio,” to prevent militants from escaping to Orakzai. [6]
 
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