| "Fazlullah either remains in Afghanistan or in Tirah. We started this operation based on reports that he has arrived in Tirah." |
The operation in Tirah, part of Khyber tribal area, aims to build on the army's offensive against strongholds of Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP) and other hard boy groups in nearby North Wazoo that began in June last year.
Last month the army said it killed at least 230
...a group of Islamic bandidos infesting Khyber Agency. It's headed by a former bus driver....
(LI).
Security officials in the northwest told AFP that the so-called Khyber II operation to shut down LI's hideouts in Tirah began in earnest on March 18, and ground skirmishes are continuing.
Chief military front man Major General Asim Saleem Bajwa
... who is The Very Model of a Modern Major General...
tweeted last week that the strategic Masatul pass, which links to Afghanistan's restive Nangarhar
The unfortunate Afghan province located adjacent to Mohmand, Kurram, and Khyber Agencies. The capital is Jalalabad. The province was the fief of Younus Khalis after the Soviets departed and one of his sons is the current provincial Taliban commander. Nangarhar is Haqqani country..
province, had been secured.
A security source in the northwest said other important passes had also been taken.
"We have taken over three main strategic locations by moving ground forces to Masatul Pass, Takhtakai mountain and Sokh area," one security source told AFP.
"With these gains, we have blocked their movement from and to Orakzai Agency
... crawling with holy men, home to Darra Adam Khel, the world's largest illegal arms bazaar. 14 distinct tribes of beturbanned primitives inhabit Orakzai agency's 1500 or so square kilometers...
, Kurram, Bara and Afghanistan."
The area is remote and off-limits to journalists, making it difficult to verify the army's claims -- and the number and identity of those killed.
TTP front man Muhammad Khurasani denied the claims, saying his group has killed 30 soldiers so far and lost only three hard boys.
- Fierce independence -
If the operation is a success and the military brings Tirah under government control, it will end the renegade status the area has enjoyed for hundreds of years.
Tirah's geography makes it an almost perfect hideout. Rather than a single valley, it is a network of peaks and vales covering an area of 1500-1800 square kilometres (600-700 square miles) at altitudes of up to 2,500 metres (8,000 feet).
The valleys are steep-sided and covered to a large extent with dense woodland. There are no roads in the area, with locals largely relying on mules and horses for transport.
Tirah also has some of Pakistain's most fertile land for marijuana and opium, which has helped hard boy groups fund their activities.
To the north the Spin Ghar mountain range, soaring to a highest point of nearly 4,800 metres, separates Tirah from Afghanistan's Tora Bora, where the late Osama bin Laden
... who is no longer with us, and won't be again...
reputedly hid out after the US invasion in 2001.
This isolation and inaccessibility have made the area an easy place to hide, a hard place to control and a favoured bolthole for rebels since the days of the Mughal empire.
- Taliban bolthole -
But it is not Tirah's history that is motivating the army's current charge.
The fight against
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
Tirah's eastern end leads directly to the plain on which Peshawar sits and army chiefs believe securing it will help stop attacks on the city and its suburban hinterland.
"This is the last hideout for LI
Security analyst Imtiaz Gul agreed taking Tirah would help secure Peshawar, which has borne the brunt of the TTP's nearly eight-year fight against the state.
"It will degrade their capability and dislodge their shelters. Denying a space to the
Besides the strategic importance of the captured locations, officials say Tirah is the only hideout left in Pakistain for TTP chief Mullah Fazlullah
...son-in-law of holy man Sufi Mohammad. Known as Mullah FM, Fazlullah had the habit of grabbing his FM mike when the mood struck him and bellowing forth sermons. Sufi suckered the Pak govt into imposing Shariah on the Swat Valley and then stepped aside whilst Fazlullah and his Talibs imposed a reign of terror on the populace like they hadn't seen before, at least not for a thousand years or so. For some reason the Pak intel services were never able to locate his transmitter, much less bomb it. After ruling the place like a conquered province for a year or so, Fazlullah's Talibs began gobbling up more territory as they pushed toward Islamabad, at which point as a matter of self-preservation the Mighty Pak Army threw them out and chased them into Afghanistan...
Fazlullah, believed to have ordered the 2012 murder attempt on schoolgirl campaigner Malala Yousafzai
...a Pashtun blogger and advocate for girls' education from Mingora, in Swat. She started blogging at age 11-12. She was 15 when a Talib boarded her school bus and shot her in the head in 2012. She was evacuated to a hospital in Britain and the Pak Taliban vowed to kill her and her father. Among other awards, she received the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize, which she deserved more than Barack Obama, Jimmy Carter, Al Gore, Yasser Arafat, or Rigoberta Menchu...
, became public enemy number one for many in Pakistain after the Peshawar massacre.
"Fazlullah either remains in Afghanistan or in Tirah. We started this operation based on reports that he has arrived in Tirah. If we clear this area from the hard boys, he won't have any place to hide," a security official said.