MINGORA, Pakistan –
The Pakistan army ready a major assault to rid the main town in the Swat Valley of unwavering Taliban militants, who the military said Friday were shaving their beards in order to mingle invisible with fleeing civilians.
The dusty streets of Mingora were mostly vacant — one resident said various unknown bodies lay unburied there. The government unperturbed a veto to allow thousands of refugees to leave with whatever belongings they could carry ahead of what is anticipated to be bloody war.
An allied Press reporter saw four armed Taliban on the edge of town, a little more than a mile from an army checkpoint. The army and witnesses have said the militants have dug trenches and laid mines to deter an attack.
Pakistan began operations in the valley and direct districts last month following intense U.S. pressure for action against extremists eroding the immovability of the nuclear-armed state and violent American troops in bordering Afghanistan.
The odious is shaping up as a major test of the will and skill of the often-criticized army to defeat the militants. The extremists fought the military to a face-off in Swat last year, forcing the country's beset politicians to accept a peace deal.
In other regions near the Afghan border, the on average outnumbered insurgents have avoided such usual battles with the military and melted away into the mountains only to reappear several months later — an outcome that some analysts say is feasible this time as well.
The operation was launched after the militants pushed out from Swat to clutch a district just 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad, under cover of the since-collapsed peace method. The advance alarmed Washington and many Pakistanis who had formerly believed they could good deal with the militants.
The military said it has killed more than 800 of the estimated 4,000 militants in the region, but the fighting has triggered an exodus of at least 900,000 people, creating a civilized crisis that risks undercutting public support for the offensive.
"Wherever the terrorists are present, they could do with to be eliminated completely," said Mian Iftikhar Hussain, in rank minister of Northwest Frontier Province. Until last month, he was the principal advocate of moves to make peace with the content.
The army said that in the last 24 hours, it has "achieved success in a choice of areas of Swat" and to have killed 55 more troop, with the loss of three soldiers. Like much of the in sequence provided by authorities, there was no way to substantiate those tolls by you.
The army has not given any records on civilian causalities, but refugees from the region have reported several deaths. Fleeing resident Ismail Khan said he had seen bodies lying in some of the streets of the fast-emptying town but didn't know if they were militants, civilians or soldiers.
The army lifted its veto in Mingora for eight hours and urged the remaining residents to flee "so that security forces can take the militants to task in street-to-street fighting," army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said.
Columns of cars, trucks and horse-drawn carts packed with people and bundles of assets streamed out of the town. Some pulled out their way past bombed-out government buildings and burned-out civilian vehicles along the crammed full and cratered main thoroughfare. Others took dirt roads through the fields and mountains.
Many went south on foot with only the clothes on their backs.
"We do not know where we are going," said Muhammad Ismail Khan, who had been powerless to find a ride for him and nine connections. "We do not know if we will ever be able to come back."
Of the 900,000 who have mistreated Swat, 80,000 are in government camps just south of the war zone.
In a proclamation, the military said militants were flake off their beards and cutting their hair — flowing locks were up-to-the-minute among the Swat Taliban — in order to escape by mingling with the refugees torrential out of the valley. Authorities have placed security at the camps and say they are difficult to stop any militants infiltrating them.
The army says it is advance slowly to limit civilian victims. Public judgment appears to support the odious, but the mood could quickly turn against the pro-Western government if the fighting drags on and civilian destitution mounts.
While insisting it will win in Swat, Pakistan's army complains of a lack of apparatus, including night-vision machinery and helicopters — shortcomings that Washington has pledged to address.
U.S. forces are already training a Pakistani paramilitary force in the frontier region, considered the likely hiding place of al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden.
A senior U.S. defense official said the Pentagon was bearing in mind plans to accelerate and expand that training.
U.S. and Pakistani officials are discussing a curriculum that would increase the number of U.S. special operations trainers in the country and expand the schooling to the regular army, said the senior official, who spar on condition of anonymity because the discussions are preliminary and no decisions have been made.
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Sunday, May 17, 2009
Mingora
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