 MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan - PakistanÂ’s army on Saturday asserted it had not lost its grip on a restive tribal region where hundreds of pro-Taleban militants have escalated attacks, triggering fighting that has left nearly 400 dead.
| "We got 'em where we want 'em!" |
Major Gen. Akram Sahi, the very model of a modern major general army commander for the rebellious region, said some 45,000 troops were deployed in North Waziristan, and are doing their best to seal the porous border with Afghanistan. “If someone says that there is no writ of government here, it hurts me,” he told a group of visiting reporters at the fortified command office of the military in Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan.
“I am here to kill anyone who is a suspected terrorist.”
SahiÂ’s comments came hours after Osama bin LadenÂ’s No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahri - who is believed to be hiding near the Pakistan-Afghan border - criticized President Gen. Pervez Musharraf and urged the Pakistan army not to obey his orders.
| Had to get a message out quick? |
In Rawalpindi, a garrison city near the capital, Islamabad, an army spokesman said Pakistan’s army “fully supports the president under whose leadership al-Qaida’s backbone has been destroyed.” “No soldier or officer is going to pay any attention to this nonsense from al-Zawahri, who has issued such statements in the past.”
Sahi said that since his Golden Arrow army division launched operations in North Waziristan in July 2005, it has killed 324 militants, including 76 foreigners, Tajiks, Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Fifty-six security forces have died.
| Which leaves several thousand krazed killers, a few ten thousand simmering syncophants, and many more psychotic Pashtuns in wacky Wazoo. |
Sahi, the top army official in the region, maintained that there were just a few hundred militants active in North Waziristan and that four to five militant leaders _ local Muslim clerics trying to impose Taleban-style religious fundamentalism _ had been forced out.
However, Sahi said up to 1,500 people, including local tribesmen who sympathize with the militants, had battled with security forces in the bloody four-day clash in Miran Shah last month that left 145 militants dead.
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