The Battle for Bajaur - PA seizes control

[DESERT FIGHTER]

This is strange.

The moron meant the first time by Pakistan army in 8 years since militancy engulfed the area.

 

[ajpirzada]

Pakistani militiamen cheer the news of the cave network capture


A Pakistani soldier patrols one of the caves


Blankets were left strewn across the network of 156 caves, used by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden?s deputy


Pakistan army takes control of al-Qaeda cave network on Afghan border - Times Online

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

I'm glad the tribesmen there are on our side. I'm sure not far away, in my native Kurram Agency, people are celebrating.

I wish that for the sake of 'moving forward' they would stop displaying their arms.

If you asked me even 3 years ago, I would say that picture is "badass" ......but I'm becoming very dis-illusioned with this whole display of arms business. It really needs to be done away with.

The Army should quietly and nicely ask them to please keep the arms at home, unloaded and with the safety-catch on.


Being a Pakhtun Pakistani, I know deep down this wont happen overnight. I may even be a hypocrite to say it.


Anyways, this is excellent news. And should be proof to even the most vendetta-driven anti-Pakistan news agencies that Pakistan is and always will be serious about securing her borders.

It will be crucial to uncover any more such caves/hideouts. You can see how many arms and rounds were uncovered from this bust alone.

 

[ejaz007]

Security forces declare final victory in Bajaur

* IG FC says operations will soon be launched in Orakzai Agency, Tirah Valley
* Governor of Kunar supporting fleeing Taliban

By Sajjad Malik and Hasbaullah Khan

DAMADOLA/KHAR: Security forces on Tuesday announced that the Taliban had been completely defeated in Bajaur Agency and the terrorists’ command and control centre in Damadola had been seized by the army.

“We have completely defeated the Taliban in a week-long operation that ended on February 6,” Inspector General of Frontier Corps (IG FC) Major General Tariq Khan said while addressing the media.

Operations: The IG FC said that security forces would soon launch operations in Orakzai Agency and Tirah Valley to flush out terrorists and destroy Taliban bases there.

He said that having gained control of Damadola – a known stronghold of local and foreign terrorists – the operation launched in September 2008 had finally come to an end, adding that terrorists had dug at least 156 caves and tunnels in the area and that a total of 75 local and foreign terrorists had been killed in the operation.

Support: He said after the defeat, around 25 percent of the Taliban fled to Afghanistan’s Kunar province, “where they are being supported by the provincial governor”. Tariq said the security forces had taken several initiatives to stop the return of terrorists and were monitoring the Pak-Afghan border with satellites.

To a question, he did not rule out Indian involvement in the region, saying that weapons and other materials seized in the region proved foreign involvement in disrupting peace in the area.

He alleged that Jamaat-e-Islami leader and former member of National Assembly Haroonur Rasheed had been supporting the Taliban, adding that Rasheed had been declared an absconder and would be dealt with in accordance with the law after his arrest.

To a question, he said at least $1 billion was needed to reconstruct the Tribal Areas, adding that this sum would be in addition to the money required for the area’s development.

Speaking on the occasion, Inter-Services Public Relations Director General Maj Gen Athar Abbas said the security forces were taking all possible measures to minimize the public’s losses during military operations.


Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[Spring Onion]

Pakistan's Army takes control of al-Qaeda cave network on Afghan border


Pakistani forces have taken control of a warren of caves that served until recently as the nerve centre of the Taleban and al-Qaeda and sheltered Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command to Osama bin Laden.

“It was the main hub of militancy where al-Qaeda operatives had moved freely,” Major-General Tariq Khan, the Pakistan regional commander, said as he gave journalists a tour of Damadola yesterday.

The village, nestling among snow-capped peaks in the Bajaur region along the Afghan border, has been fought over for 16 months. It is the first time that the Pakistani Army has set foot in the village, which had long been dominated by the insurgents operating on the both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

“Al-Qaeda was there. They had occupied the ridges. There were 156 caves designed as a defensive complex,” said General Khan, head of the Frontier Corps responsible for Pakistan’s counter-insurgency campaign in the region. He said that his forces had killed 75 foreign and local militants and cleared a zone up to the Afghan border, and that the campaign against the insurgents was in its final stage.


The army began operations in Bajaur in August 2008 and claimed victory in February last year, only for the insurgents to seep back when the Government’s focus switched to Pakistani Taleban fighters in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.

Journalists were shown caves strewn with blankets and pillows, left in haste as the army approached in January. The village has been largely destroyed by the fighting.

A large mud compound on a hilltop was once believed to be the hideout of al-Zawahiri, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, who was the subject of a $25 million (£18 million) bounty. “He has been spotted here by the local residents in the past,” said Colonel Nauman Saeed, an army commander.

Al-Zawahiri, an Egyptian doctor, narrowly escaped when missiles fired by a CIA drone struck a house in Damadola in January 2006.

According to officials he and some other al-Qaeda operatives had been attending a dinner but left just before the attack. The ruins of the house hit by the missiles were still present.

Pakistani officials and local residents said that al-Zawahiri had even married a local girl. “He would regularly travel between Bajaur and the Afghan province of Kunar,” Colonel Saeed said.

While the military has been showing off its gains many Taleban fighters and their leaders — including the main regional commander, Faqir Mohammad, have escaped the sweep and may try to return as they have done before. “I would give you a rough estimate that about 25 per cent must have gone across the border; another 10 or 15 per cent might have melted back into the areas of Swat, where they had come from,” General Khan said. “A substantial amount of them have been killed, but that is just an estimate.”


Pakistan's Army takes control of al-Qaeda cave network on Afghan border - Times Online

 

[air marshal]

US welcomes Bajaur success, rejects conspiracy theories on Pakistani anti-militant drive

WASHINGTON, March 3 (APP): The United States welcomed Pakistan’s success in wresting control of a strategic militant redoubt in Bajaur tribal area which al-Qaeda- linked militants used as a hub for activities across the Afghan border.“I don’t know the details, but I’m delighted they feel they’re making progress....the fact that they feel they’ve succeeded there is a very positive development,” Richard Holbrooke, Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanisan said Tuesday upon his return from a visit to South and Central Asian countries.

He spoke hours after a senior Pakistani commander said in Damadola village of Bajaur tribal region on the Afghan border that the Pakistan security forces had seized the infrastructure including a network of caves the militants used for their activities.

Ambassador Holbrooke also hailed Pakistan’s recent arrests of some top Afghan Taliban leaders and rejected “conspiracy theories” and media speculation about motives behind Islamabad’s stepped up anti-militancy drive, which coincides coalition forces’s operation in Marjah in Afghanistan.

“I see no evidence to support that theory. But it’s out there.
Conspiracy theories are stock-in-trade in not just in this part of the world. But I don’t see any evidence for it,” he answered when asked about to comment on a news story speculating that Pakistani captures of Afghan militants were meant to harm the reintegration process underway in Afghanistan or perhaps Pakistan wanted to show its influence over militants.

“And I know somewhat more than I’m at liberty to disclose about the circumstances under which these events took place, and every detail tends to work against that thesis,” Holbrooke stated emphatically.
He elaborated that anti-militant efforts are “work in progress” and particularly noted the fact that Islamabad is continuing its operations in the face of some pressing economic, water and energy problems.
“This is a very important sequence of events, and we hope it will continue. I don’t want to draw any strategic conclusions from it. I just want to express my appreciation to the Pakistani Government and its army for what it’s doing,” he said referring to a series of actions against Taliban in Swat, South Waziristan, elimination of Pakistani Taliban leaders and capture of Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Baradar.

“They’re doing these things in the face of enormous, overwhelming economic problems. They’re doing it in the face of water and energy problems, which are getting more and more of our attention. We, in turn, are trying to increase our support for the Pakistanis.”
Ambassador Holbrooke also cited improvement in US-Pakistan relations over the last year as a result of high-level American engagement with the Pakistani leadership.

“Well, this is a work in progress. This Administration took office just over 13 months ago. I have said before and I’ll say it again today that U.S. relations with the Government of Pakistan, civilian and military side, are much better today than they were 13 months ago,” he said referring to visits by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, National Security Adviser James Jones, Senator Kerry and other American leaders.

“So there’s a cumulative effect, in my view, of this effort.
And to me, the turning point trip was Secretary Clinton’s at the end of October--- she did a very public series of meetings and a very intense private series of meetings. She answered every question, no matter how hostile they were, and won over a lot of people. And this came right on the heels of the misunderstanding over the Kerry-Lugar-Berman legislation, which was an unfortunate misunderstanding, in my view. So this process has produced a gradual improvement in cooperation.”

Holbrooke said a water resources task force has been set up at the State Department and the US is working on ways to help Pakistan grapple with water issues.

 

[Solomon2]

Can anyone explain why the P.A. first claimed the conquest of Damadola on February 6th, yet did so again yesterday?

 

[ajpirzada]

^^ there was an agreement reached that bw tribals and gov that tribals will expel the remaining militant as their strength was greatly reduced. but it didnt work out and on handing over the charge back to police and tribals, taliban surfaced once again.

 

[ajpirzada]

 

[TruthSeeker]

Troops torch houses of 15 Taliban leaders in Bajaur Agency

KHAR: Security forces set the houses of 15 militant commanders on fire on Monday, in the Charmang valley of Nawagai tehsil in Bajaur Agency. Sources told Daily Times that the Taliban were in a rush to lay down their arms and surrender to the security forces following a deadline set by the political administration. The security forces are steadily advancing towards various areas of the Charmang valley without any resistance from the Taliban. staff report

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[ajpirzada]

 

[s90]

 

[air marshal]

 

[air marshal]

 

[fatman17]

analysis: Flags flying over Bajaur —Salman Tarik Kureshi

Since independence, however, Britain’s successor state Pakistan has done nothing to integrate these regions with the rest of the country and extend the benefits (or otherwise) of Pakistani administration, legislation or sovereignty over them

Major General Tariq Khan, inspired
by the sight of the Pakistan flag being raised over Damadola (Bajaur), claimed that this was probably the first time since Pakistan’s independence in August 1947 that the national flag had flown here. That is right. That is what he said! Okay, so we understood that the murderous traitors of the TTP were not enamoured of our green ensign and chose to fly some other pennant altogether. But not since independence? Was there a slip of the tongue here?

Probably not. The fact of the matter is that, in these regions, the writ of the sovereign state of Pakistan never ran effectively anyhow. And that was before anyone had ever heard of any kind of Taliban.

FATA — Bajaur Agency; Orakzai Agency; Mohmand Agency; Khyber Agency; Kurram Agency; North Waziristan Agency; South Waziristan Agency; Tribal Areas adjoining Peshawar District; Tribal Areas adjoining Kohat District; Tribal Areas adjoining Bannu District; and Tribal Areas adjoining Dera Ismail Khan District — adjoins the province presently governed by Amir Haider Hoti. But they do not form a part of it. All this terrain, and the souls living thereon, are said to be under the direct charge of the president of the Islamic Republic. But, let it be quite clear, the laws of the state of Pakistan do not prevail here. This is both a legal position and a reality on the ground.

Now, it may have suited a foreign imperial power to maintain two buffer zones between itself and the then Russian Empire, viz Afghanistan and the tribal areas on this side of the Durand Line. Since independence, however, Britain’s successor state Pakistan has done nothing to integrate these regions with the rest of the country and extend the benefits (or otherwise) of Pakistani administration, legislation or sovereignty over them. Worse, where the administrators of the British Raj, through a combination of guile and clever management, had generally succeeded in exercising a substantial degree of actual control over these areas, even this disappeared over the last 60 years.

Our official bureaucracies, both civilian and military, permitted — indeed, even contrived at encouraging — a flourishing trade in smuggled goods to grow in the FATA belt. Perhaps they believed that this would generate a degree of wealth in these areas without the need for investing in infrastructure. Or perhaps they enjoyed permitting the duty free purchase of consumer durables by our urban elite. The older among us will remember trips to Landi Kotal Bazaar and Bara Market to buy smuggled cloth, air conditioners and other such goodies. Easily bypassed customs checkposts were established well inside the borders of Pakistan in a hypocritical attempt at preventing these goods from entering our cities.

But that was perhaps a time of relative innocence, of victimless crime. Inevitably, more sinister trades were to evolve. The author recalls a shop in the Bara market with counters on two opposite sides. One counter retailed weaponry (including automatic weapons), ammunition and hand-grenades. The other side was where those so inclined could buy resinous lumps of marijuana or opium and deadly polythene packets of heroin powder. “He profits from selling two kinds of death,” I recall thinking, as the bearded shopkeeper left his establishment at the afternoon call to prayer, “How dare he face his Maker?”

Motor vehicles stolen in Karachi, Lahore and other cities were spirited away into the Tribal areas, there to be repainted and sold back into those very cities. Kidnap victims are lodged in these ‘regions-beyond-the-law’ while ransoms are negotiated. Thanks to the gross negligence of practically every Pakistani government over the decades, these regions became a thieves’ paradise — an extended band of lawlessness along our northwest that sheltered and offered a staging ground for every kind of crime and violent criminal organisation. These latter would include the leaders of al Qaeda and the Taliban.

For a time, the FATA regions were used principally as staging grounds for incursions into Afghanistan. Since it may have been felt that what happened in that country was not our concern, our authorities were not too pushed about these “safe havens”. In fact, the regime of Pervez Musharraf went out of its way to strike ‘deals’ with the Taliban, under which these savages were effectively granted judicial, governmental and tax collection privileges in much of FATA. After 2003, the emerging militancy of Takfiri ideas, which consider most Pakistanis to be infidels, began to cause serious concern. The venom spewed by Sheikh Essa, a firebrand cleric from Egypt, and others galvanised extremist forces, who now sought to militarily carve out ‘Islamic Emirates’ from the regions of Pakistan’s northwest and Afghanistan’s southeast.

In the process, whatever vestigial writ the threatened state of Pakistan may have possessed, was eliminated. Violent primitives erupted outward, even into the ‘settled’ districts of Pishin, Quetta, Bannu, Kohat, Malakand, Swat, Swabi and Hazara. Beyond the ethnic Pashtun belt, they carried their war against the state of Pakistan into our major cities, from Peshawar to Karachi. Their terror bombings have caused the mass murder of citizens everywhere and they are clearly implicated in the assassination of Pakistan’s best known political personality.

The armed forces correctly, if somewhat belatedly, perceived their patriotic duty and have responded to the deadly threat...admirably and, by the Grace of God, with outstanding success. That is why General Tariq Khan and we can today triumphantly salute our national flag, flying again over Damadola.

The point is that this ‘Band of Anarchy’ in the tribal areas will continue to fling out destructive tendrils in every direction, both into Afghanistan and Pakistan, until such time as FATA ceases to exist as a separate political and administrative entity. General Kayani is spot-on correct when he refers to the need for a three-pronged approach: clear, hold and develop. It is this last approach that needs to be emphasised. Development does not merely mean building roads and canals, although that is part of it. More importantly, it includes the tricky job of developing sustainable political structures and institutions. A holistic process, comprising a mix of political, administrative, juridical and ideological initiatives, needs to be envisaged and implemented. And this is the job of our political authorities, not of the armed forces.

The writer is a marketing consultant based in Karachi. He is also a poet