The Pakistani Taliban have vowed to resist until the “last breath” as security forces entered two militant-held towns and fought on the outskirts of a third in what could turn into bloody urban battles near the Afghan border.
As Pakistani political leaders gathered yesterday to discuss the military operation in the Swat Valley and surrounding areas, the prime minister insisted the country’s nuclear arsenal was safe, comments that follow reports it is expanding its nuclear stockpile.
Washington has pressed Islamabad to crack down on al-Qaeda and Taliban strongholds along the Afghan frontier, saying the militants threaten not only US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, but also Pakistan’s existence.
PHOTO: REUTERS
A top official said on Sunday that the military offensive had killed more than 1,000 suspected militants and would proceed until the last insurgent was “flushed out.” Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said later in the day that the militants were defiant.
“We will fight until the last breath for the enforcement of Islamic law,” Khan said in a brief phone call from an undisclosed location. “We consider ourselves on the right path.”
Swat was once a tourist destination that fell prey to Taliban advances over the past two years. The military’s latest offensive in the region has already led to an exodus of nearly a million people.
About 100,000 of them are now in sweltering refugee camps.
The battle in Swat’s towns in particular could prove a stiff test for Pakistan’s military.
The army is geared toward fighting a conventional battle against longtime rival India on the plains of the Punjab region using tanks and artillery, it has limited experience battling guerrillas in urban settings.
The military has tried operations in Swat before but failed to force out the Taliban, many of whom could blend in easily with the regular population or had hideouts in the mountains. Civilians in Swat said the military’s heavy use of airstrikes killed many innocents instead of militants.
In a statement on Sunday afternoon, the army said 25 militants and a soldier died in the previous 24 hours of the operation.
Security forces engaged in firefights with militants on the outskirts of Swat’s main town, Mingora, where many of the estimated 4,000 Taliban fighters in the valley are believed to be holed up, the statement said.
It also said security forces had surrounded and entered the towns of Matta and Kanju to take on the militants, and it requested civilians still in those areas to stay away from Taliban hide-outs.
Troops were making gains in the remote Piochar area, the rear base of Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah, it added.
Pakistan’s weak civilian government has been trying to rally public support behind the offensive and it has done relatively well — something made easier by public anger over Taliban advances into a district just 97km from the capital, Islamabad.
News channels have been broadcasting spots, such as one featuring ordinary Pakistanis saluting the army, while a variety of groups have collected funds and goods to send to the displaced civilians.
To get more consensus, government officials met with the leaders of all the major political parties yesterday in Islamabad.
At the start of the mostly private session, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said the army would stay in Swat until the displaced can safely return, but warned that there must be a political solution in the long run.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver