We have started the street fighting: ISPR

[ajpirzada]

Pakistan troops in Taliban urban warfare
2 days ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Pakistan said Monday troops were locked in bloody street battles with Taliban fighters in the northwest as rival politicians united behind the offensive to eliminate Islamist militants.

Pakistan's deadly operation against Taliban fighters entered a fourth week on Monday as jets and helicopters pounded militant targets, and infantry troops fought street battles in towns of the Swat district.

Nearly 1.5 million people have been displaced in the massive onslaught, waged under tough US pressure to clamp down on militants in the northwest of the country which Washington branded the greatest terror threat to the West.

Fighter jets and attack helicopters pounded militant hideouts and supply lines in Swat, once a tourist destination popular with Westerners until two years ago, when it was plunged into a Taliban insurgency to enforce sharia law.

The military says its troops are closing in on Mingora, the capital of Swat under Taliban control, and have issued a map showing security forces in a pincer movement of troops pushing down from the north and up from the south.

It reported "fierce clashes" in different places and said security forces were locked in street fighting in the Taliban-held towns of Kanju, two kilometres (one mile) from Mingora, and Matta, further to the north.

"The ground offensive has now started in the cities and the towns, before that we were fighting in the countryside," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told a news conference.

"We are closing towards Mingora. We have started the street fighting, the urban warfare in Matta... And now the infantry is going into the cities and the towns," Abbas told a news conference.

He said 27 militants and three soldiers were killed in the last 24 hours, and that forces were advancing in Peochar, the suspected bastion of Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah in a two year uprising to enforce sharia law.

Pakistani authorities say more than 1,000 militants and at least 49 soldiers have been killed in a three-pronged onslaught launched in the northwest districts of Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat on May 8.

Pakistan's rival politicians united behind an offensive to "eliminate" the Taliban on Monday with troops locked in urban combat in a thrust towards Mingora, the rebel-held capital of Swat.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani won support at a cross-party conference in Islamabad, reiterating calls for the Taliban to disarm in what he has called a fight to "eliminate" Islamist militants threatening the nation's sovereignty.

In a resolution issued after the conference seeking a national consensus, the normally fractious leaders of the country's disparate political parties expressed support for the operation in Swat.

The resolution emphasised the "need to establish and maintain the writ of the state and ensure the supremacy of the rule of law" and called for minimum harm to non-combatants saying the "security of civilians is paramount".

Refugees from the cool, mountainous conflict zone have suffered in the stifling heat of the lowlands while crowding into camps or with relatives, and many decided to return home Monday as officials said battles were subsiding.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said people were returning to their homes in Buner and the semi-autonomous tribal area of Bajaur, where the military launched operations last August, putting the figure at around 20,000.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said Sunday that the government had regained control in Lower Dir and Buner, and urged the displaced to return.

"It is too hot in Peshawar, it is impossible for my kids to live in the sizzling weather," 55-year-old Janbaz told AFP by telephone as he headed back to his hometown just west of Swat.

The military says up to 15,000 troops were taking on about 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat.

Islamabad ordered the offensive under mounting US pressure after the insurgents took up positions just 100 kilometres (60 miles) from the Pakistani capital, having broken out of their hub in Swat.

The UN refugee agency said more than two million people have fled fighting in northwest Pakistan since August 2008 in a displacement that officials fear is the worst here since partition from India in 1947.

That number includes 1.45 million people registered as displaced during the Pakistani army's offensive against militants since May 2.
AFP: Pakistan troops in Taliban urban warfare


May Allah be with our soldiers

 

[SparklingCrescent]

mashallah.... Pakistan Zindabad.... so wat the articles sayin is that Pak Army is now starttin to enter the cities, for teh first times, right? why not liek send all welll armed trooops, it would be a fast ending war?

hell with the taliban,,, Im gonna visit swat once taliban reach there destination (hell) inshallah....

 

[rokhanyousafzai]

clear it up now and move onto waziristan however the street battles have been tough normally and this will be no exception i think this will be the final phase but its important to capture fazullah to calm and ease the fear and worry of the people of swat and to fully demoralise the taliban it will also provide great moral and momentum should a operation in waziristan take place

 

[BaburCM]

Good going by the army. Just get in there and terminate these termites for once and for all. Just sick and tired of the BS. No mercy. We need Genghis Khan style cleansing. The only proper cure to this problem. We need a unilateral approach though. No outside dictation whatsoever. Let's get in there and apply a terrorist genocide.

 

[ajpirzada]

Editorial: A broader front against Taliban

President Asif Ali Zardari said Sunday that the Pakistan Army would be going into other tribal areas of the country in the hunt for the Taliban. He explained that the army had 150,000 troops there and it was already costing a billion dollars; an expansion would depend on how much the world would want to help. The collateral fallout will include more refugees, but then their quick return would depend very much on the success of the army operations. And for all this the world would have to help financially because Pakistan was in the eye of a global Taliban threat.

For the first time, Pakistan seems to be truly grasped of the situation. The operation in Swat is going well, judging from the very favourable casualty count of the enemy. But all analysts agree that the dwindling Taliban force will in time be reinforced from other parts of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that abut on Malakand Division. Also, for the first time there is almost a complete national consensus behind the plan to start wider operations. In fact, for the first time, the religious-clerical community has voiced its opposition to the Taliban brand of Islam, or at least the majority school of thought has dared to speak against a force that has hounded them over the years into submission.

There are, however, political problems within this consensus that will have to be faced squarely. The political parties have overt and covert agendas which they insist on expressing through various levels of “objection” to the military operation. From the extreme view, that our army is merely fighting America’s war and killing its own people, to the less extreme view that some parties were not consulted to avoid “talking” to the Taliban, the disagreement is very much there and can become more strident in the face of the attrition of fighting an insurgency involving foreign infiltrators.

The way the people at large have reacted to the savagery of the Taliban against the people of Swat is sure to make the resolve to fight the terrorists more firm. The resolve to take on the Taliban in FATA clearly demonstrates this new confidence. The Taliban must be stopped from coming to the help of warlord Fazlullah, and that can be done only by engaging the other warlord Baitullah Mehsud. Swat can be “conquered” and the refugees could start returning, only to find that Baitullah has sent in his people from South Waziristan to start the massacre all over again.

The triangle of discord in Karachi over the presence or non-presence of the Taliban in the mega-city unfolds with three coalition partners in the government steadily losing their men to “unknown” killers. After muhajirs and Pashtuns, now the PPP leaders at the local level are getting killed. Sadly, the three parties suspect one another of having carried out the killings. The MQM is seen as being alarmist about the swelling of the Taliban ranks in Karachi but, despite reports supporting this point of view, the other two insist that the Pashtun of Karachi are not terrorists. The police, however, go on reporting the arrest of Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders and their rank and file who confess that their men come to Karachi to get medical treatment and to take rest.

International opinion has turned in favour of Pakistan since the military operation began in Malakand Division. This is understandable because the policy of “talking” to the Taliban and making “peace deals” with them was seen, correctly, by world leaders as a policy of dereliction. When Islamabad and Rawalpindi decided finally to grasp the nettle of Taliban treachery, this opinion softened and is now inclined to help Pakistan financially as its army mobilises.

Therefore, for now at least, Pakistan is well set to face up to the menace of the Taliban without taking an economic nosedive. It now depends on our internecine politicians to keep the national consensus against terrorism intact and bite the bullet of some collateral damage in the coming days. *


Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan



this article raises a very interestin point. we have got to engage talibans in waziristan to defeat talibans in swat. or else re enforcements will continue and this war will never end. wat is ur take on this point???

 

[atp]

“May Allah be with our soldiers”
I also hope that

and bast wish for Civilians 。

 

[Elmo]

"this article raises a very interestin point. we have got to engage talibans in waziristan to defeat talibans in swat. or else re enforcements will continue and this war will never end. wat is ur take on this point???"

A very pertinent issue.

 

[s90]

Lastest is that Matta is under army control!

 

[Skeptic]

Military wants a quick end in Swat

* Report says military fears public support will erode if campaign persists longer

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: The heaviest fighting in the Pakistan Army’s battle against the Malakand Taliban, which has displaced 1.5 million civilians, is still to come, the Time has pointed out.

The military leadership, it says, fears that the longer it persists, the more likely that public support for the offensive will erode.

Although the military claims to have restored control of 80 percent of Buner, reports from the area suggest fierce fighting is still underway there as well as in Lower Dir.

The commanders are keen to wrap up the fight in Buner and Lower Dir within days in order to focus on Swat, where an estimated 4,000 well-armed, well-trained Taliban are dug in.

The army claims that the local Taliban there have received reinforcements from Waziristan, southern Punjab and jihadists from Central Asia. “Ten percent of the militants have come from outside,” Maj-Gen Athar Abbas told reporters on Saturday.

In military’s plan for retaking Swat, eliminating the Taliban command structure is the priority.

Aware that public support for the campaign is likely to ebb, the government and the military recognise that they have a limited time in which to work.

Unlike previous campaigns against the Taliban, widespread public support is claimed for Swat offensive. In a bid to maintain that support, army Chief of Staff Gen Ashfaq Kayani has been giving closed door briefings to political leaders and senior media figures.

 

[Luftwaffe]

Afghanis should have been sent home after 1989...Too late now some of them are being paid to do job inside Pakistan under the umbrella of displaced afghan refugees...

 

[muse]

"this article raises a very interestin point. we have got to engage talibans in waziristan to defeat talibans in swat. or else re enforcements will continue and this war will never end. wat is ur take on this point???"

We have pointed the same more than a month ago and from our analysis the only thing that has not matched is the role of the NYT and the "talking points" - the fact that the NYT pipeline has not been plugged reflects the continued relevance of analysts who are convinced that what the U.S cannot do to Pakistan, it will get Pakistan to do to itself.

Pakistani analyst know of this "strategy" for longm and realize that whoever's dog these Islamist terrorists are, they must be taken on and defeated, eradicated.

Perhaps U.S analysts may imagine that once "deprived" of what they imagine are allies in Afghanistan, the Pakistan will be more pliable, the continued references in the U.S press to issues related to nuclear power, weapons and infrastructure point to where the U.S. policy makers may find succour.

Pakistan must eradicate the Talib, however; as is, or at least it should be clear to those of us who have argued that even those who do not agree with the rules of the democratic game, should also have a place on the table - indeed, the struggle at the APC and what it was over and how it was resolved, should make it clear that our adversaries have a new weapon and will use it against us to bleed us dry.

Of course it will depend on Pakistanis whether they will allow their enemies to bleed them dry or just as they have decided to act against the Talib, they make their voice known to the politicians over the issue they threatened to walk out of the APC over.

 

[Rank]

need need need more

More more more

Cobra Gunships Viper series
Blawk Hawkz
Mi or chinook

Kiyani ask for that please..... we need atleast 10 - 15 Hawx atleast 50 more refurb cobraz and also atleast 10 Chinook or Mi for moving troopzzz!

is that possible guyz ??

 

[pakomar]

need need need more

More more more

Cobra Gunships Viper series
Blawk Hawkz
Mi or chinook

Kiyani ask for that please..... we need atleast 10 - 15 Hawx atleast 50 more refurb cobraz and also atleast 10 Chinook or Mi for moving troopzzz!

is that possible guyz ??

we need apache helicopter if US trust pakistan

 

[ajpirzada]

Lastest is that Matta is under army control!

yup. here we go

Security forces take control of Matta, Maidan
Updated at: 1028 PST, Tuesday, May 19, 2009
PESHAWAR: Security forces gained control of tehsil Maidan of district Lower Dir and Matta in district Swat.

According to Dir media center, militants have been completely flushed out from tehsil Maidan and the area is now under control of security forces. The displaced persons have asked to return back to their homes.

Sources said forces pounded militants hideouts in mountainous area of tehsil Maidan last night. No loss of life was reported in the action.

Meanwhile, security forces operation against militants continued in tehsil Matta and Kabal in district Swat. Forces took the control of Matta city, reports said.

Curfew remained imposed in district Swat since several days that creates shortage of food supplies and other necessary items in the area.

Security forces take control of Matta, Maidan - GEO.tv

 

[ajpirzada]

Troops fight Taliban on streets

PESHAWAR (updated on: May 19, 2009, 14:22 PST): Pakistan said on Tuesday troops were locked in fierce street battles with Taliban fighters in the northwest where a rights group accused both sides of inflicting high civilian casualties. Military officials said government forces were advancing on several fronts toward Mingora, the Taliban-held main town in the Swat valley.

Pakistani officials said Monday the fight had moved into the Taliban-held town of Matta as well as Kanju, which is a short distance from Mingora.

Footage broadcast on private Pakistan television channel showed armed soldiers standing outside locked shops in the main bazaar in Matta, a bastion of Maulana Fazlullah who has led a two-year uprising to enforce Islamic law.

"Our troops are advancing in Matta town where security forces have achieved a major success," a military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"Troops continue to close in on Mingora, from where Taliban are trying to escape but our strategy is not to let them flee," the official said.

He said the chief objective in coming days was "to take over the Taliban's main headquarters in Peochar," where commandos opened a new front last week.

The official also reported intense battles in Takhta Bund, described as the main Taliban supply route.

Another security official confirmed fighting in Takhta Bund, saying efforts were underway to cut off this route to "choke" militants in the area.

Authorities say more than 1,000 militants and at least 49 troops have been killed in a three-pronged onslaught launched in the districts of Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat on May 8.

Pakistani commentators have praised the military for moving into towns in Swat, warning operations would be deadly but were vital for the military to really flush out Taliban strongholds.

"This is the first time the army is doing something like this against Taliban militants," defence and political analyst Talat Masood to AFP.

"Even US troops never engaged in street battles in Afghanistan... Obviously there will be more casualties when you face the enemy frontally. Here you are very close to the enemy and directly in their firing range.

"The militants do not want to abandon their strongholds. They are motivated, they are brainwashed," Masood added.
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