Mil News Parkistan V Taliban

John A Silkstone

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Pakistani military to push into Swat Valley

Pakistan is to expand its military offensive against the Taliban into the militants' stronghold in the Swat Valley after ousting them from a neighbouring district.

Pakistani soldiers are seen on their way to a troubled area of Pakistan's Swat valley, at Rustum near Mardan,

Government ministers ordered army commanders to push fighters out of Lower Dir and Buner districts after American officials voiced their fears that the militants now posed a threat to the capital Islamabad.

Following a "peace deal" in which the government agreed to introduce Sharia law if the Taliban ended its insurgency in Swat Valley, militant fighters advanced into neighbouring Buner district, just 60 miles from the capital.

It is understood that President Zardari ordered troops to retake Swat after American military chief Admiral Mike Mullen visited Islamabad to voice Washington's growing fears.

Pakistani forces are now poised to attack Taliban militants in Swat after clearing them from Lower Dir and most of Buner district in a series of air raids by fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

The army's chief spokesman, Major-General Athar Abbas, announced they had recaptured Buner's main town, Daggar, after two days of heavy fighting and would take another week to completely clear the district.

Helicopters were seen dropping troops on hilltops and launching air strikes in the mountain villages of Sultan Was, Sawarai and Pir Baba where Taliban fighters were holding 70 police officers hostage.

Shops and offices in Mingora, the main town in Swat, closed early yesterday as fears grew of an imminent clash between rival Taliban and army units patrolling its streets. Local sources said the militants had seized two security officers in the town, and attacked police stations in Matta, Kabal, and Charbagh villages.

Maulana Sufi Mohammad, the pro-Taliban cleric who negotiated the Swat "peace deal", was last night reported missing amid rumours that he had been seized.

Maj-Gen Abbas said the militants had been armed and financed by outsiders, possibly foreigners, and that intercepted telephone conversations confirmed their leader, Maulana Fazlullah, was using the peace deal to spread Taliban control.
 
Parkinson vs Taliban?

Nine Chinese nationals were killed in a shuttle bus explosion in Pakistan's Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province on July 14 on their way to the China-invested Dasu hydropower project. The incident was later confirmed to be a "terror attack" when Chinese Premier Li Keqiang held a phone call with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Fourteen people were involved in the attack that was headed by a person named Tariq who is a member of proscribed Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the attack was carried out by the Swat chapter of the TTP, according to local media.

TTP comprises of tribal militants scattered in Pakistan who have no subordinate relationships between them. They each take actions against the Pakistani government and claim to be TTP to show they are not alone. The Swat chapter is one of the tribal militants that goes against the Pakistani government.
 

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