Pakistan: Army ‘clears’ Taliban stronghold in Swat

by Kal El on May 31, 2009 · Comments

With their backs against the wall, the Pakistani military appears to be bringing the fight right to the Taliban. And of course, those cowardly jihadis hide in schools, to inflict maximum casualties.

Islamabad, 29 May (AKI) – Pakistan’s military said on Friday soldiers had cleared another militant stronghold and killed 28 militants in the past 24 hours in its offensive against the Taliban in the northwest. Seven others were also reportedly detained during the latest clashes in the Swat district.

According to official sources, security forces continued search operations and successfully cleared a militant stronghold in Peochar.

Security forces destroyed rebel hideouts including one inside a religious school and recovered 12 United Nations vehicles. A huge arms cache was also uncovered by the military.

Commandos were this month flown into Peochar valley, a stronghold of Islamic fundamentalist leader, Maulana Fazlullah, who has led a Taliban uprising to enforce Sharia law in Swat.

But it was not clear how much of the area is under militant control.

Neither is it possible to confirm independently information released by the army because the conflict area has been declared a closed military zone.

The military says more than 1,200 militants have been killed in the conflict but there has been no official comment about civilian casualties during the month-long offensive in the northwest.

Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik said security forces were searching refugee camps for suspected Taliban members and several people had been arrested.

According to Pakistan’s GeoNews, Malik said the government had raised the bounty for Maulana Fazlullah to Rs50 million (620,000 dollars) while the bounty on 15 other wanted people including had been raised to Rs10 million (120,000 dollars).

Maulana Fazlullah is the leader of Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), a banned Pakistani Islamic fundamentalist militant group which aims to enforce Sharia in the country.

Some good news from Pakistan. Let’s hope the Pakistani army continues to kick ass.

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  • hellosnackbar
    The Paki army has finally made an intelligent decision:They had no choice!
    The monster that they themselves created was threatening to consume them.
    One irony is that brain addled jihadis inthe UK planned a proTaliban demonstration(it may have been cancelled due to recent events in Luton;where,pissed off Brits were threatening to give them a serious "kicking").
    The interesting upshot of these events is that many people who would describe themselves as muslims have arrived at the sensible conclusion that Taliban terror is not for them.
    Hopefully the Paki army will continue the push until all the Talibamaniacs are numbered amongst the deceased.
    The thought of the Taliban with nuclear weapons is just to awful to contemplate.
    It's probable that a future MAJOR war has been averted.
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