Full Scale War in Pakistan Against Taliban

MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces attacked Taliban fighters in the Swat valley with artillery and helicopters after the United States called on the government to show its commitment to fighting militancy.

Expanding Taliban influence in nuclear-armed Pakistan has spread alarm at home and abroad and will be a core issue when U.S. President Barack Obama meets his Afghani and Pakistani counterparts in Washington later on Wednesday.

A February peace pact aimed at ending Taliban violence in Swat is in tatters and thousands of people fled from Mingora, the region’s main town, after a government official said fighting was expected.

The militants have captured several important government buildings in the town, 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, and took positions on rooftops.

While a curfew kept people off the streets, government forces attacked in and around the town, including at an emerald mine the Taliban have taken over.

“Security forces have engaged militants’ positions at an emerald mine and helicopter gunships are also being used to flush militants out of Mingora,” said a military spokesman.

MINGORA, Pakistan – Taliban militants and security forces battled for control of a northwestern Pakistani town as residents hunkered down in their homes ahead of an expected major offensive.

Thousands of men, women and children have fled Mingora and surrounding districts, the first wave of a refugee exodus the government fears could reach 500,000.

The collapse of a 3-month-old truce in the Swat Valley with the Taliban means Pakistan will have to evict the insurgents by force, testing the ability of its stretched military and the resolve of civilian leaders who until recently were insisting the insurgents could be partners in peace.

Dawn News reported that helicopter gunships were attacking militant positions in the town and that more troops had been deployed there.

Fearing that war could consume the region, thousands fled the main Swat town of Mingora. Refugees clambered onto the roofs of buses after seats and floors filled up. Children and adults alike carried belongings on their heads and backs.

“I do not have any destination. I only have an aim — to escape from here,” said Afzal Khan, 65, who was waiting for a bus with his wife and nine children. “It is like doomsday here. It is like hell.”

Shafi Ullah, a student, said the whole town was fleeing. “Can you hear the explosions? Can you hear the gunshots?” he said, pointing to a part of town where fighting was continuing.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas declined to say whether the events heralded the start of major operations, saying only that “all the contingency plans are worked out” for carrying one out.

Pakistani men took to the streets of the capital Islamabad at the beginning of the week to demonstrate against the Taliban. Not a single woman joined in the protest and in all there were only a few hundred demonstrators. Nevertheless, this demonstration shows that something has changed in the country.

The demonstrators stuck green stickers to their clothing, the colour of Pakistan, with white letters saying “Leave Taliban, leave’ and “Leave US, leave”. Until a couple of weeks ago it was unthinkable that cries of protest could ring through the streets of Islamabad. Only in the lawless regions bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban do not allow women to leave their houses and men to shave their beards, do people come out in protest now and then.

Pakistani Islamists shout slogans as they march during an
anti-Taliban and anti-US protest rally in Islamabad.