Pak army advances towards Taliban positions in Waziristan

Pakistan moved large contingents of troops into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan Saturday, beginning a long-anticipated ground offensive against the Al Qaeda-backed militants in treacherous terrain that has overwhelmed the army in the past, the Pakistani army said.

The operation is the most ambitious by the Pakistani army against Taliban militants, who unleashed a torrent of attacks against top security installations in the past 10 days. The militants’ targets included the army headquarters where planning for the new offensive has been underway for four months.

The US has been pressing the Pakistani army to move ahead with the campaign in South Waziristan, arguing that it was vital for Pakistan to show resolve against the al Qaeda fortified Pakistani Taliban, which now embraces a vast and dedicated network of militant groups arrayed against the state, including those nurtured by Pakistan to fight India.

Precise information about the assault was impossible to immediately verify. No reporters are traveling with the troops, and phones in Wana, the administrative capital of South Waziristan, were not answered.

The civilian government met with the army chief of staff, Gen Ahfaq Pervez Kayani Friday, and a statement afterwards said the government had granted permission for the operation.

In the North-West Frontier Province, civilian officials said Saturday they had been told by the military that soldiers were moving in a pincer movement from government areas in Razmak in the north into Makine; from Wana in the west into Kani Gurram, and from Jandola in the east into Spinkai Raghzai.

In the last few days, fighter jets have hammered the mountainous enclave, where the Pakistani Taliban now headed by Hakimullah Mehsud keep their operations centre, according to civilians in Wana who had been reached by telephone at the time.

Most of the areas where the army is headed are 6,000 feet to 7,000 feet high. The region roughly bound by the small towns of Shakai, Makine and Kotkai is the homeland of the Mehsud tribe, who have a reputation as the fiercest of fighters in Pakistan.

In an early taste of Taliban tactics, an army convoy headed from Miran Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, to Razmak on Saturday was hit by a remote controlled bomb, killing two soldiers and injuring four others, a Pakistani reporter in the city said.

This time, though, under the leadership of Gen. Kayani, the army is better prepared. It also had been left little choice on whether to take on the operation given the onslaught of attacks by the Taliban and al Qaeda against the Pakistani state, politicians have said in the past several weeks.

About 28,000 soldiers were involved in the operation in South Waziristan and were set to face about 10,000 militants, army officials said. About 1,500 particularly tough Uzbek fighters were at the core of the Taliban in the mountainous enclave, they said.

The proportion of soldiers to militants did not appear to be very high, some military specialists said, noting that in the Swat Valley in May, the Pakistani army fielded more than 30,000 soldiers against a similar number of less experienced militants.

The army expected the South Waziristan operation to last about two months, a period that stretches into the winter season there, a Pakistani official who has been briefed by the military said.

Operations in other parts of the tribal areas in the last year have shown how hard guerrilla tactics have proved for an army trained in conventional warfare. In Bajaur and Mohmand, two tribal areas close to the provincial capital of Peshawar, and far less mountainous than South Waziristan, the army has been forced to launch repeated air attacks against persistent Taliban attacks, even though much of the area was declared cleared of militants almost a year ago.

South Waziristan sits at the southern tip of the tribal areas, and needs a much longer supply line than Bajaur and Mohmand, military experts said. Tens of thousands civilians fled South Waziristan in the past few months in anticipation of fighting, moving in with relatives all over Pakistan. Thousands more moved into government-held towns on the edge of South Waziristan in the last several days, United Nations officials said.

With a population of about 500,000, South Waziristan was now probably empty of most civilians not involved with the militants, provincial officials said. The number of displaced was not expected to come close to the more than one million people who left the Swat Valley last May, they said.

The preparations for the South Waziristan campaign had been thorough, but the effort is fraught with uncertainties, said a former brigadier, Javaid Hussain.“It is the fear of the unknown that is weighing very heavily on those involved in the planning,” he said.