 The Pakistan army sought on Sunday to allay Western fears that plans to pull back some troops from tribal lands meant it was relaxing its fight against a Pakistani Taliban commander.
| "Tut tut! Nothing to worry about!... Duck! [KABOOM!]" |
The army launched an offensive in January against Baitullah Mehsud's fighters in their stronghold in South Waziristan, one of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal regions on the border with Afghanistan. Mehsud, who declared himself the leader of the Pakistani Taliban and declared war on the government late last year, has been boxed in, surrounded in the Mehsud tribal lands since then.
| That's whatcha might call a pretty optimistic description. You might also word that as "Ensconced in his apprently impenetrable mountain fastness, Baitullah pulls the strings that send all who cross him, and even many who don't, to often gory deaths, not the least of them Benazir Bhutto." |
The army is now pulling back, to let the estimated 200,000 people who fled the fighting to return home. "We are now adjusting our positions to allow these refugees to move back to their homes because their crops are being destroyed... and their animals are dying of starvation," local army commander, Major General Tariq Khan, told journalists on a trip to Waziristan organized by the army.
| "We're doing it for the children!" |
He said his troops will have to relocate as it would be risky to hold onto their current positions with a civilian population on the move. "The army is still in control," said the general, who commands a 15,000 strong division from Dera Ismail Khan, a small city on the banks of the Indus River, south of Waziristan. Pakistan's new government, sworn in at the end of March, has begun a policy of engagement, negotiating through tribal leaders to persuade Mehsud to halt militant operations from the region. |