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Taliban fighters in Wana, South Waziristan in February 2005. Reuters photo. Click to view. |
Fighting between the Taliban and the Pakistani military has been reported in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan and the settled district of Swat. In South Waziristan, the military is attacking Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban after the kidnapping of four soldiers, while in Swat the army continues its slow advance through the former vacation spot.
Forces from Baitullah Mehsud’s Taliban kidnapped four paramilitary soldiers in the town of Makeen on New Year’s Day. The kidnappings have sparked the recent round of fighting in the Taliban sanctuary. The Pakistani military immediately launched artillery and helicopter-gunship assaults on Taliban positions in the town of Makeen after the soldiers were captured; the military claims to have killed 25 Taliban fighters and captured another 20 during the strikes. Today, helicopters struck at Taliban positions in “in three different areas of [the] Mehsud tribe,” KUNA reported. Up to 10 “tribesmen” were reported killed.
Makeen is the last known location of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Baitullah was appointed leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan after a gathering of local Taliban leaders throughout the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province in mid-December. Pakistani intelligence intercepted a communication where Baitullah took credit for Benazir Bhutto’s assassination and stated he was in the town near the Afghan border.
Meanwhile, Maulvi Omar, the spokesman for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, said the Taliban would “expand its actions from Waziristan to Kohistan and [the] settled districts” unless military operations were halted in Swat, Dawn reported. “Now we extend the deadline for two days and ask the government to withdraw troops and halt the operation in Swat. Otherwise, we will attack the government everywhere and it will be an all-out war,” Omar said. The Taliban are already expanding their influence in Mardan, to the south of Swat.
Omar took responsibility for the kidnapping of the four Pakistani soldiers and said the Taliban was “building new bunkers in the [South Waziristan] area for a possible operation against their commander Baitullah Mehsud” by Pakistani troops.
In Swat, the Pakistani military is continuing to fight a slow campaign in the settled district. The military was last reported to have advanced as far as Bahrain in central Swat, yet it is still fighting in the Matta and Kabal areas which it claimed to have secured over a month ago.
The military imposed a curfew in several areas of Swat, including Kabal, and are just constructing checkpoints in a region of Matta. At least 60 Taliban fighters were reported captured in the Shakar Dara region, while military operations were reported in neighboring Shangla district.
After declaring a state of emergency at the beginning of November, President Pervez Musharraf said operations in Swat would be completed by Dec. 16, and resorts would be reopened shortly afterward. The state of emergency was lifted Dec. 14, but the military is still conducting operations in regions it reportedly secured early on.
See The Fall of Northwestern Pakistan: An Online History for more information on the rise of the Taliban and al Qaeda in South Waziristan, Swat and elsewhere.
