eh?????
Ask ur Chidu & PM we are always ready to talk its just that Indians want to act like 'big brothers'
I think India stand is very clearly hammered to your
Mallu and Zudu.....that India side will only come to table if Pakistan Stops supporting Terrorism against India.
eh?????
Link not working, if ur talking about IDPs then listen, 85% of the IDPs from Swat have returned, now IDPs are coming from SWA & inshallah they will return to their homes as well
Do u seriously think that we are dropping bombs the way Luftwaffe dropped them on London???
there is only limited use of air power & that too is very precise
Well the link works fine here for me.....but if you insist I will post the entire story.....
The article tells me that the bombing in indiscriminate....no holds barred....
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Notes from Mingora
The Pakistan Army has forced the Taliban to flee Mingora. But nobody else wants to live there now, either.
By Iqbal Khattak
Looking down at the city from a dusty window of the Pakistan Armys M-17 transport helicopter, Mingora gave off the air of a ghost town. This was hardly surprising as it had been almost four weeks since the military had begun operations against Taliban militants in the Swat Valley. The situation on the ground was such that although the security forces had already regained control of about 70 percent of the district capital, 90 percent of the population had fled fighting in search of safety. A densely populated city of almost half a million residents, the military vacated Mingora before launching Operation Rah-e-Rast, or Right Path. Military sources report that 1300 militants have been killed as of 5 June. Lieutenant-General Nadeem Ahmed, the chief of the Special Support Group, said training centres, hideouts and command and control facilities of the Taliban were destroyed with the militants on the run. But the military acknowledges that most of the Taliban who fled can stage a comeback when the civilians return home. To ensure that this does not happen, Islamabad is trying to ensure the capture or death of the top leadership: There is a total reward of PKR 91 million for 21 top Swat commanders while those with news of chief Maulana Fazlullah will receive a whopping PKR 50 million.
Back in Swat, driving around the city of Mingora only reinforces the sense of being in a ghost town, and a bloody one at that littered with unburied corpses of militants with dogs sniffing around them. There were also huge craters in the middle of the streets, serving as a reminder that the militants had mined the deserted city before they fled it. What is striking, however, is the limited damage inflicted on the visible physical infrastructure after weeks of intense fighting. Indeed, the only devastated areas are those where the Taliban had set up sector command headquarters to organise the fight against the army. For instance, Green Chowk, the militants stronghold, experienced more damage than any other place in the city. This was where they beheaded rivals, government employees and security personnel and hung their bodies in the centre of the square earning it the nickname of Khonee (bloody) square. Some private buildings occupied by militants were also targeted by US-made Cobra gunship helicopters or long-range artillery. As a result, several streets were littered with broken electricity wires, collapsed walls and roofs. It was rare to see a person, one of the few trapped inside the buildings, appear in the streets to receive a military-provided MRE (meal ready-to-eat).
No relief
There are, however, civilians left in Mingora, and they are in dire need of food and civic amenities, both of which have been next to non-existent since the operation started in the first week of May. And it continues in much this way today; there is no medical staff, electricity, gas, drinking water or any other emergency facilities available to the some 40,000 residents still stranded by the continuous curfew imposed across the city. Living is extremely difficult under these circumstances when there is no electricity, no gas, no drinking water and no other facility to support life, says 18-year-old Saran Zeb, standing in queue at a MRE distribution point. We will soon have no food we stockpiled before the operation started, he adds.
Labourer Ikram has similar complaints of an imminent food shortage. The food we stocked is finishing. I wonder what will happen if no food is left and there is still curfew. We will die, the stranded resident said in a choked voice. Ten-year-old Noor Zaman is shaken by the gunfire still heard in and around the city at night. It is very frightening when heavy guns are blitzing, he says, tightly clinging to her fathers left hand. That same evening, this writer too heard the shots that so scared the 10-year-old Noor. But according to police sources, these shots are fired to keep the soldiers on duty awake and alert. (This explanation sounded like a ploy to comfort the embedded journalists.) What is more, there had been no relaxation of the curfew for twenty consecutive days. Finally, on 31 May, the authorities announced a four-hour let-up of the curfew. During this period, young, old, men, women and children were all seen heading for relief camps in the neighbouring districts of Swabi, Mardan and Peshawar.
These were the last of the people remaining in Mingora 2.4 million had already left before them, from Swat, Buner and Dir. Add to that the 554,000 displaced from Bajaur and South Waziristan last year during similar military offensives against the militants and the total number comes to about three million people urgently in need of help. The Office for the UN Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Pakistan has warned that humanitarian efforts for these internally-displaced people would have to be scaled down if the international community does not come up with immediate and generous financial assistance. The office had appealed for USD 543 million to meet the urgent needs of the displaced people. But it has only received 22 per cent of the amount as of 4 June.
With much discomfort for the public because of the Taliban, the militants are losing support of the people from the affected areas. A woman displaced from the Swat town of Kanju, and currently living in a relief camp in the Swabi district, says of the Taliban militants: They are beasts. They are not human. May God finish them all like they have finished us.
Iqbal Khattak is the Peshawar bureau chief for the Daily Times
Himal Southasian/Swat valley: What lies ahead?
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