Pakistan may launch new border offensive
Pakistan may launch a new military offensive near the Afghan border where militant leaders are believed to have fled to escape a government onslaught against the Taliban in South Waziristan, the prime minister said.
The suggestion of another anti-Taliban operation illustrated the challenge facing the nuclear-armed US ally – as it squeezes one extremist stronghold in its north west, insurgents regroup in other parts of the rugged, loosely-governed region.
Prime minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the next front may be Orakzai, a district north of South Waziristan in Pakistan’s lawless tribal belt.
The government has launched a spate of air strikes there, and the United Nations said on Friday that about 40,000 people had already fled.
“The operation in South Waziristan is over. Now there are talks about Orakzai,” Mr Gilani told reporters from Lahore.
But he later backed down from some of those comments, saying “our military operation in South Waziristan is continuing” and stressing that “there have been lots of successes” in the fight there.
He did not say when the South Waziristan operation would end and one in Orakzai might begin.
Although Pakistan has had a civilian government for nearly two years after several years of army rule, the military remains a powerful force likely to have the last say on where and when it will send its resources.
The US has long pushed Pakistan to retake spots along the border that have become safe havens for militants. That pressure is likely to intensify now that 30,000 additional US troops are heading to Afghanistan to take on a resurgent Afghan Taliban.
To Washington’s dismay, Islamabad has focused on groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, which threaten its citizens, rather than militants who attack US and Nato forces across the border. Mr Gilani did not indicate a shift in that strategy yesterday.
Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan’s tribal regions who has deep contacts in the military, said Pakistan had succeeded in South Waziristan in that it has destroyed much of the Pakistani Taliban’s physical infrastructure, but could not ignore Orakzai if it wanted to eliminate the militant leadership.
“The Pakistani Taliban train suicide bombers in Orakzai,” he said. “This is the right decision; this is the right move.”
Pakistan’s army launched its ground offensive in South Waziristan in mid-October, saying it was determined to eliminate its top internal enemy in its most forbidding stronghold. The army said it sent some 30,000 troops to take on about 10,000 militants, including many foreign fighters.
The operation has prompted retaliatory bombings nationwide that have killed more than 500 people. The attacks have continued even as battlefield activities have slowed down.
On Wednesday the army reported it has killed 589 militants so far, losing 79 soldiers. But none of the top Pakistani Taliban leaders is known to have been captured or killed in the onslaught and many are believed to have fled to North Waziristan and Orakzai. The latter has been the home base for Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.
Orakzai is a smaller tribal region, covering about 600 square miles. It is sandwiched between the Khyber and Kurram tribal regions and does not directly border Afghanistan. Officials have estimated it has a population of 500,000 people, but recent census figures were unavailable.
Pakistan’s tribal belt is largely underdeveloped and its border with Afghanistan porous. The areas have long had a semiautonomous legal status, meaning the government has little influence, and some areas are believed to have become virtual Taliban mini-states.
