Pakistani Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Sunday that the Taliban commander in the northwestern Swat valley had been surrounded and would soon be captured.
The statement came as 13 Islamist insurgents and three paramilitary soldiers died in two incidents of violence in the tribal region that borders Afghanistan.
Maulana Fazlullah, supported by hundreds of fighters, rose in rebellion against the government in 2007 to enforce strict Taliban-like laws in Swat, a scenic mountain district 140km from the capital city, Islamabad.
Security forces launched a full-fledged air and ground operation against the militants in Swat and its nearby districts in late April, after they flouted a peace pact under which government agreed to impose Shariah rule in return for end to the insurgency.
The military says more than 2,000 fighters have been killed but the claim lacks independent confirmation.
“The back of anti-state and anti-Islam elements has been broken,” Malik told reporters in Islamabad after holding a meeting with tribal leaders from the country’s restive north-western region bordering Afghanistan, where government forces are pursuing anti-Taliban offensives.
Malik said troops were closing in on Fazlullah, adding that “he can’t run.”
The minister’s remarks came two days after the military announced the capture of Fazullah’s spokesman Muslim Khan.
According to the army, Khan was arrested along with four other militants, including a senior leader, near Swat’s main town of Mingora.
Meanwhile, a missile fired from a suspected unmanned US plane slammed into a car in a Pakistani tribal region close to the Afghan border yesterday, killing four people, intelligence officials and residents said.
The apparent US strike was the latest of more than 50 in the region since last year aimed at killing top al-Qaeda and Taliban leaders. Last month, the head of the Pakistani Taliban was killed in one such strike.
Yesterday’s attack took place about 3km from the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, killing four people, two officials and witnesses said. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they need to remain unnamed to do their job effectively.
The identities of the victims were not known.
People with missing teeth might be able to grow new ones, said Japanese dentists, who are testing a pioneering drug they hope will offer an alternative to dentures and implants. Unlike reptiles and fish, which usually replace their fangs on a regular basis, it is widely accepted that humans and most other mammals only grow two sets of teeth. However, hidden underneath our gums are the dormant buds of a third generation, said Katsu Takahashi, head of oral surgery at the Medical Research Institute Kitano Hospital in Osaka, Japan. His team launched clinical trials at Kyoto University Hospital in October, administering an experimental
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency and the Pentagon on Monday said that some North Korean troops have been killed during combat against Ukrainian forces in Russia’s Kursk border region. Those are the first reported casualties since the US and Ukraine announced that North Korea had sent 10,000 to 12,000 troops to Russia to help it in the almost three-year war. Ukraine’s military intelligence agency said that about 30 North Korean troops were killed or wounded during a battle with the Ukrainian army at the weekend. The casualties occurred around three villages in Kursk, where Russia has for four months been trying to quash a
FREEDOM NO MORE: Today, protests in Macau are just a memory after Beijing launched measures over the past few years that chilled free speech A decade ago, the elegant cobblestone streets of Macau’s Tap Seac Square were jam-packed with people clamouring for change and government accountability — the high-water mark for the former Portuguese colony’s political awakening. Now as Macau prepares to mark the 25th anniversary of its handover to China tomorrow, the territory’s democracy movement is all but over and the protests of 2014 no more than a memory. “Macau’s civil society is relatively docile and obedient, that’s the truth,” said Au Kam-san (歐錦新), 67, a schoolteacher who became one of Macau’s longest-serving pro-democracy legislators. “But if that were totally true, we wouldn’t
ROYAL TARGET: After Prince Andrew lost much of his income due to his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein, he became vulnerable to foreign agents, an author said British lawmakers failed to act on advice to tighten security laws that could have prevented an alleged Chinese spy from targeting Britain’s Prince Andrew, a former attorney general has said. Dominic Grieve, a former lawmaker who chaired the British Parliament’s Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) until 2019, said ministers were advised five years ago to introduce laws to criminalize foreign agents, but failed to do so. Similar laws exist in the US and Australia. “We remain without an important weapon in our armory,” Grieve said. “We asked for [this law] in the context of the Russia inquiry report” — which accused the government
RSS