Pakistan Army Masses for Huge Assault on Evil Taliban

http://www.newsmax.com/international/pakistan_militants/2007/11/17/50317.html

Pakistan Army Masses for Assault

Saturday, November 17, 2007

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan -- Some 15,000 Pakistani troops have massed for a major

assault on Islamic militants in a scenic northern valley, whose fall has

raised concern about Pakistan's ability to withstand rising extremism, the

army said Saturday.

Security forces have been fighting in the Swat Valley, a former tourist

destination just 100 miles from the capital, since July, when a bloody army

raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad sparked a wave of militant violence.

Foreign fighters have allegedly joined the armed followers of Maulana

Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban cleric in the valley, amplifying Western fears that

swaths of Pakistan near the Afghan border offer an increasingly safe haven

for al-Qaida.

Washington is expressing concern about rising violence in Pakistan, where

well over 1,000 security forces, civilians and militants have died in the

past five months.

A senior Pakistani commander said Saturday that the army had recorded 28

suicide attacks in that period.

"It's not Iraq, but it is getting worse," Michael Vickers, the Pentagon's

assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity

conflict, told The Associated Press on Friday in Washington. "We would

always like them (Pakistani authorities) to do more given the importance of

the problem," he said. "They're certainly doing a lot."

The army said Saturday that troops backed by helicopter gunships and

artillery were attacking militants to push them back into the mountains

overlooking the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan's vital overland route to China.

Between 35 and 40 rebels were killed in that push on Friday, it said in a

statement. That raised the number of militants killed this week to over 100,

according to army reports.

A police official said some civilians had died after shells struck their

homes. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not

allowed to address the media, but gave no further details.

Sirajuddin, a Fazlullah spokesman who goes by one name, confirmed that the

military had intensified attacks but said his forces had suffered only

"some" casualties.

"Our mujahedeen are still in a strong position, and God willing we will

defeat the enemy," he told AP by telephone. He accused the army of killing

civilians by shelling residential areas.

In another burst of violence, police said at least 30 people died in clashes

between Sunni and Shiite Muslims in Parachinar, a town near the Afghan

border.

During a rare media briefing at the army's headquarters, a senior commander

gave details of the threat cited by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf when he

imposed a state of emergency on Nov. 3.

Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha said militants from Afghanistan as well as the

lawless Pakistani border regions of Waziristan and Bajur had reinforced the

followers of Fazlullah in Swat.

Pasha, director general of military operations, said the army had assembled

about 15,000 troops in Mingora, the valley's main town and would launch its

main offensive within days.

"We will bottle up as many of them as possible and then eliminate them,"

Pasha said. "This is our killing ground."