Pakistan anti-Taliban push effective: US officials

[DaRk WaVe]

Pakistan anti-Taliban push effective: US officials ​

CAMP WILDERNESS, Afghanistan: Pakistani offensives against Taliban bastions have stemmed the flow of fighters into Afghanistan, according to a US general, but local officials want further action.

Pakistan last year embarked on a series of ambitious offensives to evict the Taliban from their rugged and isolated northwest sanctuaries.

The army went after fighters who swept through the Swat valley perilously close to the capital, moving on to Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan heartland South Waziristan and other tribal districts that hug the Afghan border.

“I think overall the effects that we see is that it is putting a strain on our common enemy,” said Major General Curtis Scaparrotti, commander of Nato's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in eastern Afghanistan.

“Now it's actually fighting in two directions... We know that they are having more difficulty with their supplies, their finances, their leadership.”

The US general told AFP on a visit to ISAF's Camp Wilderness, deep in the mountains of eastern Paktya province, that Pakistan's military push was most effective when coupled with Nato action over the border.

“There was a period of time in summer where the cross-border activity was actually lower than it had been in the last two years,” he said.

“So, yes, you can see the effects of it. It has decreased the cross border activity for the period of time that we are working together.”

Militant training camps and safehouses in Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt mushroomed after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan sent Afghan Taliban, Al-Qaeda and other Islamist fighters flooding into the region in late 2001.

But critics say Islamabad is picking and choosing which groups to pursue, with little effect on the nearly nine-year Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

“Those operations are not effective for Afghanistan,” said Abdul Qayum Katawazy, governor of Afghanistan's Paktika province, which borders North and South Waziristan and southwest Baluchistan in Pakistan.

“The Pakistani military are fighting those Taliban that are against the Pakistan government,” said Katawazy.

They do not want to fight militants who are against the Afghan government and coalition forces but who do not oppose the Pakistani authorities, he added.

Brigadier General Mohammad Asrar Aqdas, commander of the Afghan army in Khost province, which borders Pakistan's North Waziristan and Khurram tribal districts, praised the operations but said he also saw few benefits.

“We haven't felt any positive effect from the operations yet. This operation was not in all of Waziristan and all the insurgent camps,” he said.

Washington has criticised Islamabad for targeting only the militants that attack within Pakistan while taking a softer stance on groups using their territory to target foreign soldiers over the border.

Pakistani officials bristle at any suggestion that they are not doing enough, when thousands of soldiers and civilians have been killed in the military assaults and Taliban attacks.

While the blame game rages on, US military officials say fighters continue to move back and forth over the two countries' porous border, either to attack foreign troops or travel on elsewhere.

US troops stationed at Camp Deysie just south of Camp Wilderness - a key militant infiltration route from Pakistan to the big Afghan cities - are preparing for more attacks as winter snows melt on the frontier mountains.

In the nearby Ibrahim Khel village, locals are deeply wary of their neighbour's intentions, fuelled by decades of conflict and mistrust.

“If the military of Pakistan want to remove the Taliban, they can do it in one month, but they don't want to do that,” said the hamlet's education director, Jawaz Khan.

DAWN.COM | World | Pakistan anti-Taliban push effective: US officials

 

[DaRk WaVe]

US reviewing ‘Swat operation’ as model: Athar Abbas​

RAWALPINDI: Director General ISPR Athar Abbas has said that major gains have been made during the eight-year war against terrorism. 'We have managed to break the back bone of terrorists and realizing our successful strategy in Swat, the US is thinking of applying the same strategy in Afghanistan,' he said.

In an interview with a private TV channel here on Thursday he said due to our enormous successes the US is taking a review of the Swat operation as a 'model of success'.

Abbas said that during the eight year operation against extremism 1900 Pakistani army troops have been martyred, 5000 injured, 4000miscreants killed and 3000 have been arrested.

'During during Malakand operation 340 Pakistani army troops including officers have been martyred, 1800 miscreants were killed and 2000 were arrested,' he said.

Athar Abbas said that about 1046 check posts have been set up at Pak-Afghan border for stopping external interference and 100,000 troops are manning the border.

He said that the success of operation in Malakand operation was much more than anticipated. Hower Abbas also said that if the political leadership fails to live up to its responsibilities then all our successes would go to waste. -Online

DAWN.COM | Provinces | US reviewing ?Swat operation? as model: Athar Abbas

 

[Kompromat]

Everything is doing good apart from the Recent Air Strike which was quite unfortunate & sad.

 

[T-Faz]

Bajaur, North West Pakistan

I’ve just spent the day touring Pakistan’s northern border with Afghanistan, where I’ve been deeply impressed by what Pakistan’s military has achieved in its recent offensive against the Taliban. Travelling in the same territory where the young Winston Churchill fought (and wrote highly readable dispatches for the Daily Telegraph) during the British Army’s Malakand campaign in 1897, I found that the Pakistanis have succeeded in completely routing the Taliban and reclaiming control of the tribal territories that adjoin the Afghan border.

I will be writing in more detail about my tour of Pakistan’s front line later on, but my first impressions are of the discipline and commitment the Pakistanis have demonstrated in eradicating their own Taliban threat. In the past Pakistan has got a bad press for appearing to drag its feet over tackling the Islamist threat in its midst. But the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and the return of the country to civilian rule has seen a radical change of outlook, especially after the Taliban made its ill-judged attempt to seize control of the Swat valley to the north of the country’s capital, Islamabad.

The military responded by launching an all-embracing assault on the Taliban’s stronghold in Bajaur province in the tribal territories. Two years later the Taliban’s fighters have either been killed, captured or fled back across the inhospitable moutain passes to Afghanistan. During the campaign, moreover, the Pakistani military has taken significant casualties of its own, with 150 dead and more than 600 injured, which is more than twice the casualties suffered by our own troops on the other side of the border during the same period.

With this level of sacrifice in future we should all think twice before accusing the Pakistanis of lack of effort.

We must not underestimate Pakistan's contribution to defeating the Taliban – Telegraph Blogs