/ 1 June 2009

Pakistani troops close in on key Taliban town

Pakistani troops on Monday pressed their offensive against the Taliban in the northwest Swat district, closing in on a key town after pushing into a strategic valley, officials said.

Pakistan launched the air and ground assault in late April, after Taliban fighters advanced to within 100km of Islamabad, flouting a deal to put three million people under sharia law in exchange for peace.

Pakistan has said Mingora, the main town in Swat, is back under government control and that troops are now hunting the top leadership of the hardline Taliban movement in the nearby mountains.

”Security forces have encircled Charbagh town where some top Taliban commanders are holed up,” a senior military official told Agence France-Presse (AFP) on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

Troops on Saturday dropped leaflets, warning people to evacuate ahead of possible operations and a curfew was relaxed on Sunday to enable civilians to leave the area, which has a population of 20 000 to 25 000, he said.

Charbagh lies 20km north of Mingora and has been described as one of the most important Taliban strongholds after Peochar.

Commandos flew into Peochar valley last month, a stronghold of Swat Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah where heavy fighting has been reported for weeks.

”Checkpoints have been established in the towns of Khwazakhela and Manglawar, north and south of Charbagh respectively, to effectively cut off any possible supplies to the Taliban,” another military official told AFP.

Attack helicopters and artillery shelled militant hideouts in Kabal and Lower Malam Jabba overnight into Monday, he added.

The military said security forces entered Kalam, a strategic valley about 90km north of Mingora, on Sunday where operations were under way to flush out the Taliban.

A senior Pakistani Defence Ministry official, Syed Athar Ali, said on Sunday that the five-week offensive to crush Taliban fighters in the northwest could end within days with ”only 5% to 10% of the job” remaining.

Military says more than 1 200 militants and 80 soldiers have died in the onslaught, launched in the districts of Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat on May 8, but those tolls cannot be confirmed independently.

There has been little official word on civilian casualties, but UN officials say about 2,4-million people have fled the offensive, which has sparked fears from rights groups and aid workers of a humanitarian catastrophe. — AFP

 

AFP