Pakistan Fighting Militants on 2 Fronts
By SALMAN MASOOD and SABRINA TAVERNISE
Published: June 1, 2009
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The army said Monday that 18 militants had been killed in clashes in the Swat valley and the South Waziristan tribal region over the past 24 hours as part of Pakistan’s expanded campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
The latest fighting followed exchanges of fire starting late Saturday between militants and the Pakistani military in South Waziristan, which the government has said will be the next front in its offensive. Twenty-five militants were killed in those clashes, the Pakistan military said.
In the latest fighting, two soldiers were killed and four were injured in the ongoing offensive to flush out the militants from the two restive regions.
But the areas have been largely off limits to reporters, and it has been impossible to corroborate assertions by the military.
Elsewhere, in a possible reprisal attack by Taliban militants, at least two people were killed when a bomb tore through a busy bus terminal in the northwestern city of Kohat, an important garrison on the border with the tribal regions.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Taliban leaders have vowed to avenge the military campaign against them with “massive attacks” in Pakistan.
The Pakistani military has been pressing its campaign against militants for the past month, and more than two million people have fled the fighting. The Pakistani army has said that the battle could be over in a matter of days in Mingora, the valley’s largest city, and that normal conditions were “fast” returning. But international agencies say the situation in the valley is dire.
“The people of Swat need greater humanitarian protection and assistance immediately,” said Pascal Cuttat, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Pakistan. In a statement on its Web site on Sunday, the Red Cross said a team of its officials visiting Swat were alarmed by what they saw.
“People have been blocked for weeks,” said Daniel O’Malley, who led the team. “There is no running water, no electricity, and food is scarce. There is no fuel left for generators and most medical facilities in the district are no longer functioning. Phone lines are down, so people have been cut off from the outside world and are anxious for contact with relatives who fled the area.”
Defense Secretary Syed Athar Ali, who was speaking at a conference in Singapore, was quoted by Reuters as saying that “only 5 to 10 percent of the job is remaining” in the Swat valley and that the pockets of resistance would be cleared in two to three days.
Refugees coming out of Swat during the lifting of a curfew on Sunday said that many people remained stuck in the valley without food, water and electricity.
A senior Obama administration official said Sunday that the American special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, would leave on Tuesday to visit refugee camps around the conflict region.
Mr. Holbrooke will be taking a team of American officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and Usaid to look for ways to speed up the relief effort.
The mass migration of residents out of Swat is Pakistan’s largest since the country was partitioned from India more than 60 years ago, and it has added to concerns over security and the government’s capacity to provide immediate relief to the displaced.
Muhamed Amin, a 60-year-old taxi driver from Kanju, an area just outside Mingora, said it took around 12 hours to reach Peshawar, the regional capital, now brimming with refugees less than 100 miles away. He and 11 members of his family walked part of the way, a march of misery during which helicopters were firing into the area.
“It was suicidal,” Mr. Amin said. “We were just playing with death.”
The family decided to leave, when, according to Mr. Amin, the battle engulfed their neighborhood about eight days ago, with explosions and gun battles all around them.
There has been no count of civilian casualties during the conflict. Mr. Amin said one of his neighbors had been killed during a gun battle, and the men of the area buried him hastily while waving a white flag.
“Every moment we were fighting for our lives,” he said.
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