Pakistani Army Retakes Largest Town In Swat Valley From Taliban

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban have fled the Pakistani army's advance on the main town in the Swat Valley, delivering the military a strategic prize in its offensive against militants in the country's northwest, commanders said Saturday.

Taliban fighters had dug themselves into bunkers built into hotels and government buildings in Mingora, and initially offered stiff resistance as troops first closed roads leading to the town then began moving in earlier this week, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.

Aid was being distributed to some of the estimated 20,000 who were trapped in Mingora, and water and gas supplies were being restored. But Abbas said it would be at least two weeks before power is switched back on, and refugees were not yet being encouraged to start returning to their homes.

About 3 million people have fled the fighting in Swat, and the exodus has raised fears of a humanitarian crisis.

Abbas said an unknown number of militant fighters were able to escape Mingora town despite the military having it surrounded, raising the prospect that they could return to the fight elsewhere.

The military launched a major offensive about one month ago in the Swat Valley and neighboring areas to oust Taliban militants who had been extending their control over the northwestern region near the border with Afghanistan.

U.S. and other officials say the lawless border region is being used by al-Qaida and the Taliban as a base to plan and launch attacks on Western forces in Afghanistan, and see the offensive as a test of Pakistan's resolve to fight extremism on its soil.

Government troops had been advancing steadily into the Swat region for about a month, bombarding towns from the air and fighting house-to-house with Taliban gunmen in some places.

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"When they realized that if they did not leave these areas the noose would tighten around them and they would not find a way to leave ... they decided to end the fight and leave," Abbas said.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said the number of people uprooted from their homes by the fighting had reached "around 3 million," and that more than 190,000 of them were living in refugee camps. The rest are staying with relatives or relying on goodwill from local residents.

The widespread domestic support for the campaign so far could sour if the government is perceived to have failed the refugees, or if a high number of civilian casualties is revealed.

Abbas said an emergency medical team had been flown to Mingora and would work to reopen the town's hospital and treat civilians wounded in the fighting.

The Taliban has warned it will launch terrorist strikes in Pakistani cities in retaliation for the campaign, and claimed responsibility for last Wednesday's gun and suicide bomb attack in the eastern city of Lahore that killed at least 30 people. A day later, three suicide bombings killed at least 14 people in two cities in the northwest.

Abbas said on Saturday that 1,217 militants have been killed in the Swat offensive and 79 arrested, and 81 soldiers have died. The military has not released civilian casualty numbers and says all care is being taken to protect the innocent.

The figures could not be independently verified. The tally and the extent of destruction caused by the fighting is largely unknown because media have been restricted from traveling in the region.

Abbas said he could not say how long the offensive would last.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani on Saturday defended the decision to launch the operation, saying it was necessary because the Taliban's advance from its stronghold of Swat into neighboring Buner last month was a direct challenge to the government.

"The very existence of Pakistan was at stake, we had to start the operation," Gilani told a group of workers at state-owned Pakistan Television.

He promised cash payments to people forced from their homes and a massive reconstruction effort.

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Associated Press writers Asif Shahzad and Munir Ahmad in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Comments

[CFSM]

Straight lines drawn on maps in colonial times the source of many a problem - before that of course warlordism often set the boundaries; given the UN isn't going to sit down and sensibly start over then presumably modern functioning democracies do need to emerge - including equal rights for all.

[fifty8]

Unable to pacify Afghanistan’s Pashtun tribes (again, lumped together as `Taliban’), a deeply frustrated Washington has begun tearing Pakistan apart in an effort to end Pashtun resistance in both nations. CIA drone aircraft have so far killed over 700 Pakistani Pashtun. Only 6% were militants, according to Pakistan’s media, the rest civilians.

Pashtun, also improperly called Pathan, are the world’s largest tribal people. Fifteen million live in Afghanistan, forming half its population. Twenty-six million live right across the border in Pakistan.
Up to three million Afghan Pashtun are refugees in Pakistan.

True to their strategy of divide and rule, Britain’s imperialists split the Pashtun by an artificial border, the Durand Line (which became today’s Afghan-Pak border). Pashtun reject this artificial border.

Many Pashtun tribes agreed to join Pakistan in 1947 provided much of their homeland remain autonomous and free of government troops. Pashtun Swat, where Islamic Sharia law was in force, only joined Pakistan in 1969 after assurances of autonomy and religious freedom.

As Pakistan’s Pashtun increasingly aided Pashtun resistance in Afghanistan, US `Predator’ drones began attacking them. Washington forced Islamabad to violate its own constitution by sending troops into Pashtun lands. The result was the current explosion of Pashtun anger.

http://www.ericmargolis.com/political_commentaries/destroying-pakistan-to-make-it-safe_1.aspx

[700rpm]

The Taliban exist and are more than a coalition of disaffected Pashtun tribes. If it was in fact the oppressed people of the tribal area who were invading, murdering, raping and pillaging the Swat Valley, then where did the estimated 3 million refugees come from? Running from their own people?

I recognize the British hand in the history of the region, but I can't accept your argument or your logic about the current aggression by the Taliban. The Taliban are terrorists and bullies, and, as their non-resistance turn-tail-and-run response to a real military force shows, they are like all of their type: merchants of fear against the weak and cowards when battle is joined against the strong.

[ModernTimes1]

The entire post is a shameless lie.
Pashtuns tribes don't all support Taliban militants.­.
Pashtun tribes are not represented by Maulana Fazlullah and his ilk.
Pashtun tribes don't support ban on female education.
Pashtuin tribes don't support bur ning of music shops.
Pashtun tribes don't support Taliban style Sharia law.
Regardless, Swat is part of Pakistan and needs to be brought back under federal administrative control.

NY Times: "In Brooklyn, Pashtuns March Against the Taliban"
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/15/in-brooklyn-pashtuns-march-against-the-taliban/
To bad they're to afraid to march in Swat.

[Wodooyino]

Thanks for this. As with the roiling Middle East and Africa it all seems to go back to centuries of 'Western Imperialism' trying to carve up and control the world and its resources with our arbitrary etch-a-sketch borders. Even with our silly Democrat vs. Republican squabbles we clearly demonstrate that we're all hard-wired for tribalism rather than nationhood.

[smchp]

So the Pashtun are kind of like Texas then?

[leftword]

I sympathize with all victims of war and imperialism, including the Pashtun of Afghanistan.

However, I don't sympathize with people who support terrorism. The Pashtun know what the Taliban and their allies, al Qaeda, are all about. These groups do not represent Islam or any reasonable governing body; they support a sort of fundamentalist ethic that includes suicide bombings and mad attacks on such "sinful:" things as music and dance and female beauty.

Pashtun attitudes are fundamentally responsible for the craziness in Afghanistan, like America attitudes are responsible for the mess that is Iraq. We all need to get past our religious bigotry and address the real world.

[donklinestiver]

Maybe its just a sham with no press allowed maybe they are again shooting up empty buildings to get the USA to send more cash.

[700rpm]

Yes, and the pictures of the refugees are are staged and photoshopped.