WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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WORLD> Asia-Pacific
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Pakistani army vows to oust Taliban militants
(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-05-09 10:29 Officials say they are unable to confirm accounts from fleeing civilians of innocents killed and wounded by indiscriminate gunfire and shelling. Abbas said troops were advancing slowly to try to minimize such collateral damage. But the stream of civilians seeking safety appeared to have intensified, leaving Pakistan facing a humanitarian emergency. The mayor of Mardan, the main district to the south of the fighting, said an estimated 250,000 people had fled in recent days. Of those, 4,500 were staying in camps, while the rest were with relatives or rented accommodation, he said. On Friday, the UN refugee agency said provincial officials had told them 500,000 had fled, were on the move, or were trying to flee. About a half-million have already been made homeless elsewhere in the border region since August 2008, when the army launched its last major anti-Taliban operation in the Bajur border region. Tens of thousands of people are trapped in Mingora, Swat's main town. Some have accused the Taliban of not allowing them to leave, perhaps because they want to use them as human shields. Others came under attack even as they fled. Siraj Muhammad, a 19-year-old mechanic among the exhausted multitude who made it to Mardan on Friday, said a shell exploded near people trying to walk to safety, killing two and wounding him, his mother and two siblings. After struggling on for several miles, they flagged down a truck, joining scores of others escaping over a mountain pass, he said. "We had a home, we had a family, we had happiness, we had prosperity, and all we have now is tears, fear and a dark future," he said, lying on a plastic sheet in a refugee camp. Taliban militants seized much of the area under a peace deal, even after the government agreed to their main demand to impose Islamic law in the region. US officials likened the deal to a surrender. Pakistani leaders said the agreement's collapse had opened the eyes of ordinary citizens to the extremist threat. Abbas wouldn't say how long it would take to clear the valley of 4,000 or 5,000 militants, including small numbers of foreigners -- Tajiks and Uzbeks -- as well as Punjabi extremists and tough Waziri fighters. He said the military was reinforcing the 12,000 to 15,000 troops already in Swat. He gave no details, but he predicted a tough fight against militants who exploited the peace deal to regroup, descend from mountain hideouts and seize most of Swat's towns. The troops faced guerrilla tactics, including remotely detonated homemade bombs made of explosives, steel pellets and nails packed into pressure cookers, Abbas said. Mines have been laid in Mingora. Insurgents had forcibly recruited young boys from poor families in Swat, and sent some of them to train as suicide bombers in the South Waziristan tribal region, he said. "We have seen with the capture of Mingora that the initiative has been taken by the militants," said Nasim Zehra, a fellow of Harvard University's Asia Center and a prominent Pakistani security analyst. "It's obviously an operation that is going to take weeks, or more." She said strong support from Pakistan's fractious politicians and divided civil society will be vital to the army, whose previous operations have largely failed.
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