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The Battle for Orakzai & Khyber Agencies

Six soldiers killed in Orakzai blast

PESHAWAR: A bomb attack killed six Pakistani soldiers in the Orakzai tribal region on Friday, security officials said.

The device exploded as the convoy was moving through Orakzai’s Yakh Kandaw area.

“Frontier Corps troops were on a routine patrol in upper Orakzai when an IED (improvised explosive device) blast took place in Yakh Kandaw,” the district's political administrator, Abdul Qadir, told AFP.

“Six security officials died on the spot while three were injured. A search operation has been launched in the area to trace the militants.”

A paramilitary official from the Frontier Corps said the dead included a colonel, and said two other troops were wounded.

A senior security official told AFP the convoy had been en route from the village of Ghaljo in Orakzai to the northwestern town of Kohat.

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6 troops killed, 2 injured in Orakzai mine blast

Six security men were killed and two injured when a vehicle of the forces hit a landmine in Upper Orakzai region on Friday, security officials said.

The injured security men were transferred to Kohat hospital. The device exploded as the convoy was moving through the Yakh Kandaw area of Orakzai, one of the districts where Taliban militants have fled after punishing offensives elsewhere in the northwest.

"Frontier Corps troops were on a routine patrol in upper Orakzai when an IED (improvised explosive device) blast took place in Yakh Kandaw," the district's political administrator, Abdul Qadir, told French news agency.

"Six security officials died on the spot while three were injured. A search operation has been launched in the area to trace the militants."

A paramilitary official from the Frontier Corps said the dead included a colonel, and said two other troops were wounded.

The deceased senior Pakistani military officer was identified as Colonel Yousuf. The vehicle was completely destroyed in the incident at Yakh Kandaou area.

A senior security official told the news agency the convoy had been en route from the village of Ghaljo in Orakzai to the northwestern garrison town of Kohat. According to Pakistani military statistics, 2,421 army and paramilitary soldiers were killed and 7,195 wounded in fighting with militants from 2002 until April this year.

Similar bomb attacks killed three Pakistani soldiers in the tribal district of Khyber on Wednesday and another three in South Waziristan on Tuesday.

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ORAKZAI AGENCY: At least 12 militants were killed and 8 others got injured on saturday after security forces pounded their hideouts in Orakzai tribal region. - AFP
 
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12 Militants Killed in Kurram, Orakzai

PESHAWAR, Oct 24 (APP): The security forces stepped up action against suspected militants in Orakzai Agency and Kurram Agency on Sunday, killing 12 militants and injuring eight others besides destroying their key hideouts, sources said.

The forces backed by helicopter's gunship have targeted militants' suspected positions in different areas including restive Khadizai and Kot Khali of Orakzai Agency, destroying their several hideouts.

Reportedly, 12 militants were killed and eight others injured due to shelling. The forces intensified the action after a lieutenant-colonel and five soldiers had embraced Shahadat in a roadside bomb blast on Friday last.

The security forces have destroyed more than 30 training centers and 150 hideouts of militants in the agency. The militants are on the run, leaving behind arms and ammunition.

There are report of clashes between security forces and miscreants in and around Khadizai and Kot Khali where militants are offering resistance due to hilly area. During the ongoing operation initiated in lower and upper Orakzai agency some three months back, more than 1,300 suspected militants have been killed during the ground and aerial offensives.
 
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A cousin of mine has been wounded in Orakzai. He was hit by a bullet during a clash. Though, the bullet wound hasnt done much damage fortunately, he fell awkwardly hurting his back. Kindly pray for his early recovery !
 
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A cousin of mine has been wounded in Orakzai. He was hit by a bullet during a clash. Though, the bullet wound hasnt done much damage fortunately, he fell awkwardly hurting his back. Kindly pray for his early recovery !

Very sorry to hear that, hope your cousin makes good recovery asap.

Will keep remembering him in his prayers.
 
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A cousin of mine has been wounded in Orakzai. He was hit by a bullet during a clash. Though, the bullet wound hasnt done much damage fortunately, he fell awkwardly hurting his back. Kindly pray for his early recovery !

i hope he would recover soon. My best wishes for him.
 
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A cousin of mine has been wounded in Orakzai. He was hit by a bullet during a clash. Though, the bullet wound hasnt done much damage fortunately, he fell awkwardly hurting his back. Kindly pray for his early recovery !

....''and this too shall pass''.....

peace to you, your brother and the family. Inshallah he will make speedy recovery and return back to the task. Situation could have been worse.

will keep him in my thoughts
 
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Pakistan says time not right for anti-Taliban assault


By Michael Georgy

KALAYA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan will consider mounting an anti-Taliban offensive in North Waziristan only when other tribal areas are stabilized, a senior military officer said on Tuesday, a position likely to anger ally Washington.

Pakistan has resisted mounting U.S. pressure to launch a major operation in North Waziristan to eliminate the Haqqani Taliban faction, one of the most dangerous forces fighting American troops over the border in Afghanistan.

Doing so would make no strategic sense for Pakistan because it sees the al Qaeda-linked group as an asset which can help it counter the growing influence of arch-enemy India in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's army has repeatedly said it is too stretched fighting Taliban insurgents in other forbidding mountainous regions, and that only it can determine if and when to strike.

Lt.-Gen Asif Yasin Malik, the main military commander for the northwest, said it would take at least six months to clear militants from Bajaur and Mohmand, two of Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal agencies, described as global hubs for militants.

"What we have to do is stabilize the whole area. I have a very large area in my command," he told reporters on a trip to Orakzai agency. "The issue is I need more resources."


There are already six brigades in North Waziristan which carry out daily operations, he said.

The U.S. announced $2 billion in military aid for Pakistan last week as the countries sought to dispel doubts about Islamabad's commitment to uprooting Islamist insurgents from safe havens on its soil.

In March, Pakistani troops launched an offensive in Orakzai, which officials described as the nerve center for Pakistan's Taliban, which included training camps.

Officials said 654 militants were killed in what they described as a successful campaign that ended in June. Militants often dismiss official death tolls. Nearly 70 soldiers were killed.

Pakistan says a series of army offensives severely weakened homegrown Taliban. But militants often melt away, set up strongholds elsewhere or try to return to areas they lost.

At a military camp in Orakzai, weapons and bomb-making equipment army officers said were captured from Taliban hideouts were on display for the media. These included machineguns, rows of AK-47 assault rifles and a suicide vest stuffed with ball bearings.

Officials say militants are no longer capable of staging major operations and are resorting to sniper attacks and roadside bombings. Militants attacked a checkpost manned by paramilitary soldiers in Orakzai on Tuesday, killing one soldier, local officials said.

The army is getting villagers involved in efforts to keep the Taliban from returning by providing some of them with rifles.

"By 2012 things should have turned it around totally," said Malik.

Military officials say the operation broke the back of the Taliban and only 10 percent of Orakzai still needs to be cleared. That may not be easy, given the Taliban's resilience.
 
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Orakzai: Window on Pakistan's war against militancy

By Emmanuel Duparcq (AFP)

KALAYA, Pakistan — Seven months after launching an air and ground offensive against the Taliban in Orakzai, Pakistani generals say the mountain district outside direct government control is "90 percent" clear.

In other words, most of the job is done. Except that in June, the military announced that major combat operations were over even though clashes continued.

And the generals admit that despite their apparent success in ridding the area of insurgents, Taliban leaders have fled into neighbouring districts.

The challenge in Orakzaki, just one of seven lawless tribal districts on the Afghan border, shows the enormity of the task facing Pakistan as it bids to stamp out the menace of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militancy.

It is one of the reasons the United States last week offered Islamabad two billion dollars of fresh military aid, subject to Congressional approval.

Washington wants its ally to do more to prevent insurgents crossing into Afghanistan and fuelling a nine-year war.

Today, a Pakistani flag snaps in the wind once more on the ridge overlooking Kalaya base and Major General Nadir Zeb, commander of the Frontier Scouts tribal militia, is proud of what he is about to tell the press.

The military flew international reporters up to Kalaya on Tuesday to celebrate the "success" story of Orakzai -- a large red and gold tent erected under the pine trees to honour the occasion.

"It has been a major blow for terrorists. They are not an organised structure anymore," said Zeb, dressed in his navy blue uniform and beret.

"We broke their back here... now 90 percent of the agency is clear. Lower Orakzai is totally clear. Problems with militants only remain in the Mamunzai area (in the north)," he said.

On paper it makes for a nice victory in a semi-autonomous tribal belt, dubbed by Washington the epicentre of Al-Qaeda and its Taliban allies fighting in Afghanistan.

Washington calls the region the most dangerous place in the world. It is where the United States has welcomed offensives such as that in Orakzai and wants to see more such operations.

Before going into battle in March, the military said Orakzai had been controlled for two years by the Pakistani Taliban, blamed for most of the suicide and bomb attacks that have hit the country for more than three years.

From Orakzai, Zeb says, the Taliban planned attacks all around the country. Since 5,000 troops launched the offensive on March 24, 67 soldiers and 654 militants have been killed, and 250 militants arrested, he said.

He gave no number of civilian casualties, but Riaz Masood, the administrator of Orakzai, said about 85 percent of the estimated 220,000 people living in Lower Orakzai had fled the combat, mostly for the nearby towns of Hangu and Kohat.

He said that around 10,000 families have come back.

Zeb showed off photographs of the militant training camps that were allegedly uncovered, but the military told journalists that it was not possible to leave the military base on Tuesday to visit the camps.

Instead, war booty was laid out on wooden trestle-tables: about 60 shotguns, 20 mortar shells and a dozen grenades.

Then all the material needed to make bombs in the Taliban style: gas cylinders, gunpowder, ball bearings and remote-control switches.

But beyond the confines of the base, there appears to be a different story.

Pakistani security officials said rebels on Tuesday attacked a paramilitary post at Tanda, three kilometres (two miles) from Kalaya, killing a soldier. Last Friday, a bomb killed six soldiers on a routine patrol.

The same officials say the Taliban also have hideouts in Dabori and Ghaljo, other than in Mamunzai in Upper Orakzai -- that the military has partially cleared roads, but not the mountains.

Asked how long it would take to "clear" Orakzai completely, Zeb was careful. "It will take some time, months," he said.

And he admitted local Taliban leaders had fled into the districts of Khyber and Kurram in the cat-and-mouse chase that has been repeated in successive offensives since 2002, after Pakistan joined the US "war on terror".

In the same way, Taliban elements entered Orakzai after fleeing a sweeping offensive designed to clear out their headquarters in South Waziristan.

But the military's capacity is limited. Pakistan has already deployed more than 100,000 troops in the tribal belt and committed the military to relief efforts after catastrophic floods affected 21 million people this summer.

To guard against any Taliban return, the strategy has been to raise local tribesmen in pro-government militias or lashkars. But that does not ease the mind of Guldar Khan, a tribal leader in the nearby village of Utman Khel.

"The army restored security. Tribes have made a strong commitment to fight insurgents at all costs. We have a lashkar with 100 men, but a big problem: we don't have weapons. But without weapons, we can't even shoot birds!"
 
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Twelve militants killed in Orakzai shelling

Twelve militants were killed and six others wounded as helicopter gunships pounded militant hideouts in different areas of Orakzai tribal region on Friday.

The helicopter gunships targeted militant positions in Khadizai, Shahu Wam, Kasha and Saifal Dara areas of the agency. Four hideouts and a vehicle of militants were destroyed during the shelling. The security forces also conducted search operation in Ghaljo and adjoining areas. Huge cache of arms including rockets, mortars, hand grenades and explosives were recovered during the operation.

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