ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan moved thousands of troops into the militant stronghold of South Waziristan on Saturday, the army said, beginning a long-anticipated ground offensive against Al Qaeda and the Taliban in treacherous terrain that has stymied the army in the past.
Troops moved in from Shakhai, Razmak, and Jandola.
The operation is the most ambitious by the Pakistani Army against the militants, who have unleashed a torrent of attacks against top security installations in the last 10 days in anticipation of the military assault. The militants’ targets included the army headquarters where planning for the new offensive had been under way for four months.
The United States has been pressing the army to move ahead with the campaign in South Waziristan, arguing that it is vital for Pakistan to show resolve against the Qaeda-fortified Pakistani Taliban, which now embrace a vast and dedicated network of militant groups arrayed against the nuclear-armed state. The groups include some nurtured by Pakistan to fight India.
American officials have said the fighting there would probably not substantially help the American and NATO effort in Afghanistan because most militants who cross the border to fight there are from a different area in Pakistan and because the Taliban stronghold within South Waziristan is not directly along the border.
But if successful, the operations could put pressure on Al Qaeda, a pivotal supporter of the Taliban in Afghanistan, providing training and strategic planning.
The front in South Waziristan was the fourth operation by the army against the Taliban in a year, and the campaigns in the less remote parts of the country’s tribal areas have shown that guerrilla tactics can bedevil an army trained in conventional warfare against its archenemy, India.
In Bajaur and Mohmand, two tribal areas close to the provincial capital of Peshawar, and far less mountainous than South Waziristan, the army has been forced to launch repeated air attacks against persistent Taliban attacks, even though much of the area was declared cleared of militants almost a year ago. Civilians who fled Bajaur and Mohmand have been unable to return, and towns flattened by the army have remained in ruins.
Even in the Swat Valley, where the military was able to make most cities safe enough for residents to return, the army was unable to knock out the Taliban leadership.
In Washington, senior American military officials were closely monitoring the long-awaited offensive, with some expressing skepticism about how extensive a ground campaign the Pakistani Army would actually carry out.
“This is going to be much tougher than their offensives in Swat and Bajaur this year,” said one top American officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “We just don’t know how committed the army will be.”
Still, Obama administration officials said Saturday they were pleased Pakistan at least decided to go ahead with the offensive. Some senior administration officials voiced concerns immediately after the death of Baitullah Mehsud, the country’s public enemy No. 1, that the Pakistani military would let up in its counterinsurgency efforts.
Precise information about the start of the assault Saturday, which army officials said involved about 28,000 soldiers, was impossible to verify immediately since no reporters are traveling with the troops.
But it was clear that the military faced a potent, heavily armed enemy that has been preparing for months, bringing in reinforcements from across Pakistan’s tribal region, and diverting Taliban fighters from Afghanistan.
In South Waziristan, the Taliban loyal to the Mehsud tribe are relying on hardened Uzbek fighters, and despite the death of their leader, Baitullah Mehsud, in an American missile strike in August, the rest of the Taliban leadership appears largely intact.
The guerrillas are practiced at hit-and-run tactics intended to keep the troops bottled up until the snow falls next month. Bunkers and tunnels have been under construction with the help of excavation machinery commandeered in the past several years from local contractors, civilians from South Waziristan said.
In North-West Frontier Province, civilian officials said Saturday that they had been told by the military that soldiers were moving in a pincer movement from government areas in Shakhai in the west, Razmak in the north into Makeen and Jandola in the east into Spinkai Raghzai.
In the last few days, F-16 fighter jets have hammered ammunition depots and fortified bunkers in the mountainous enclave, where the Pakistani Taliban, now led by Hakimullah Mehsud, keep their operations center, according to civilians in Wana who had been reached by telephone.
The region inside a ring of government-held towns, Jandola, Razmak and Shakhai, is the homeland of the Mehsud tribe, who have a reputation as the fiercest of fighters in Pakistan.
In a taste of Taliban tactics, an army convoy heading to the area of operations from North Waziristan was hit by a remote-controlled bomb Saturday, killing two soldiers and wounding four others, according to a journalist reached by telephone in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan. That area in North Waziristan was supposed to have been neutralized after talks between a militant group and the military, the journalist said.
- 1
- 2
