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2014-06-16 India-Pakistan
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In Drive Against Taliban, Pakistani Airstrikes Hit Strongholds
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[NY Times] Pak fighter jets attacked Taliban strongholds on Monday, and Islamist fighters retaliated with a roadside kabooming, as a long-expected military operation in North  Wazoo, the country's most lawless tribal district, moved into its second day.
The Pak military command said in a statement that it had attacked six targets in the district and killed 27 hard boy fighters. Most of the strikes occurred in the Shawal Valley, a thickly forested highland area that Taliban and Al Qaeda gunnies use as a sanctuary.
Several hours later, the military reported that at least six soldiers were killed when an kaboom struck their convoy north of Miram Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
The action on Sunday and Monday, with a combined reported corpse count of at least 167 people, suggested that the military's Waziristan campaign will initially be waged mainly from the air.
Continue reading the main story
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The military has said little else about the scope of the operation, except to note that artillery and ground troops will also be used. One official told Agence La Belle France-Presse that as many as 30,000 soldiers could be involved.
The military's casualty figures could not be independently confirmed because the tribal belt is inaccessible to outside journalists, and local journalists operate under considerable restrictions.
Paks in the rest of the country are girding for possible reprisal attacks in major cities. Still, public opinion seems largely to support the operation, which the army calls Zarb-e-Azb, or Strike of the Prophet's Sword. "Operation at last!" read Monday's front-page headline in The Nation, a conservative English-language daily.
In a brief speech to the Pak Parliament on Monday, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
tried to address speculation that there had been disagreement between his government and the military over the offensive. He called it a joint decision that became necessary after the Pak Taliban kept up a barrage of attacks during attempts to engage them in peace talks.
"We were talking to these groups and being attacked at the same time," he said. Mr. Sharif recounted attacks on an Islamabad court and last week's siege of the Bloody Karachi
...formerly the capital of Pakistain, now merely its most important port and financial center. It is among the largest cities in the world, with a population of 18 million, most of whom hate each other and many of whom are armed and dangerous...
airport, noting that Pak citizens no longer felt safe. He said his government was committed to restoring peace in Pakistain.
Mr. Sharif said that while there may have been different opinions about a military operation and peace negotiations in the past, "this chapter now has to be closed."
Mr. Sharif's main political rival, Imran Khan
... aka Taliban Khan , who ain't the sharpest bulb on the national tree...
of the Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem , each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
party, has routinely criticized the Sharif administration for not being serious about negotiating with hard boy groups. However,
we can't all be heroes. Somebody has to sit on the curb and applaud when they go by...
television channels reported on Wednesday that Mr. Khan's party would be backing the military operation.
Public opinion in Pakistain has long been divided on whether to try to end the Taliban insurgency through negotiations. But the hard boy attack on the Karachi airport last week, which killed at least 36 people and temporarily closed the airfield, has been seen as a humiliation and has galvanized opinion in favor of military action.
Even so, experts warn that the Taliban has a broad network of hard boy supporters across the country, some of them in allied jihadist groups, which could be used to hit back.
On Monday in Multan, a city in Punjab Province, unidentified gunnies kidnapped a nephew of the country's chief justice, police officials and family members said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, and it was not clear whether the abduction was related to the North Waziristan offensive. But one of the victim's relatives, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that the missing man worked as a junior official at Inter-Services Intelligence, the country's powerful spy agency.
The army said on Monday that it had blocked all entry points between North Waziristan and the rest of Pakistain, and had requested assistance from the Afghan government in sealing North Waziristan's border with the Afghan province of Khost
...which coincidentally borders North Wazoo and Kurram Agency...
.
A Taliban capo, speaking by telephone from Waziristan, said that surveillance drones were seen in the skies over the district, showing that the United States was helping Pakistain with its offensive. "They are jointly conducting this operation against us, helping each other and sharing intelligence," he said.
The Mighty Pak Army, however, has its own drones and recently started using them over Waziristan. Unlike some American drones, the Pak drones carry no weapons.
The Taliban warned foreign companies and airlines to leave Pakistain or risk becoming targets in the conflict. "They should immediately suspend their ongoing matters with Pakistain and prepare to leave Pakistain, otherwise they will be responsible for their own loss," a Taliban front man, Shahidullah Shahid, said in a statement.
After seven years of bloodshed that has killed thousands of Pak civilians and soldiers, the military is trying to tackle the gunnies in their tribal-belt stronghold. "These enemies of the state will be denied space anywhere across the country," said a military statement issued shortly after the operation started on Sunday. 
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Posted by Fred 2014-06-16 12:46||
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File under: al-Qaeda in Pakistan
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