Army seeks Taliban leaders elimination

MINGORA (AFP/Reuters) - Military said Wednesday that big towns could be won back within days but warned it could take another two months to defeat the Taliban in a blistering air and ground offensive.
Pakistan launched the assault to eliminate militants in three districts of the northwest in late April. The big cities and big towns will stand clear within three days time, military spokesman Brigadier General Athar Abbas told AFP on a hill overlooking Mingora, the main town in the Swat valley that the army claims to control.
Describing the Taliban as an elusive enemy that shied away from pitched battles during a six-week offensive in the northwest, Abbas said it may be another two months when we can say the complete area is fully secured.
Authorities claim that more than 1,300 militants and around 86 soldiers have died in the operations, which UN officials say have also displaced up to 2.5 million civilians, now sheltering in government-run camps or with relatives.
The military announced further successes Wednesday, saying government forces had secured Charbagh, located 20 km north of Mingora and described as one of the most important Taliban strongholds in Swat.
Security forces also successfully secured Pir Baba and Bhai Kalay in the neighbouring district of Buner, where there has been heavy fighting for weeks.
Few details given out by the military can be independently confirmed because the area of operations are largely closed to journalists and aid workers.
An AFP reporter saw heavy damage in downtown Mingora at Green Chowk, once dubbed bloody chowk because of the bodies - headless, hanged and shot - that used to be dumped in the roundabout by Taliban during an uprising to enforce Sharia law.
Shops were reduced to rubble, sides of buildings collapsed and debris littered the ground. Elsewhere, there were broken windows around the electricity and water plant, but otherwise little visible damage in the city.
The shops still standing were shuttered and not a soul was on the streets with Mingora under curfew Wednesday, although Abbas estimated that 30,000 people were still living in the city out of a population of 300,000 - the vast majority of whom fled.
Major General Ijaz Awan, commander of the Mingora campaign, said that the displaced might be able to return within two weeks but that soldiers would need to patrol for at least a year to protect the city from returning Taliban.
Militarily they can bring them back tomorrow, he said referring to those who fled Mingora to government-run camps or relatives homes further south.
Awan said from a military point of view displaced civilians could start to come home, but the towns water and electricity supplies had to be restored and that would take two weeks.
From June 17, the displaced were expected to begin returning, he said. Authorities would screen people coming back to weed out any militants trying to slip back.
First we will ask people from small towns and villages to return, then (from) the main towns including Mingora, Awan said.
The government is raising a community police force to help with security, he said. Many poorly equipped and trained policemen melted away in the face of Taliban aggression.
They will be given licensed weapons and they will be guarding their areas at night, Awan said.
But the army would remain in the valley for at least a year, even if the entire region is cleared of militants, Awan said.
The army pushed militants from the valley with an offensive in late 2007 but the Taliban drifted back when the army withdrew.
That wouldnt happen again, he said.
The army as a force is going to stay here, he said.
Awan said conclusive victory would only be won when Taliban leaders were killed.
Their death is vital to kill their myth, Awan told a group of reporters flown to Swat by the army on Wednesday.
Pakistan has vowed to hunt down the commanders of the Taliban uprising in Swat, but commanders are not totally certain of their whereabouts.
Awan said they were most likely in Kabal, in northern Swat, although he also said their location was anybodys guess.
Government has slapped a 600,000-dollar price on the head of firebrand Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, wanted dead or alive, for masterminding the nearly two-year uprising in the valley.
Swats Mingora town has been under curfew for most of the past three weeks and looked completely deserted on Wednesday.
Awan told reporters that the army had been ordered not to use heavy weapons or airstrikes in the town to minimise damage.
Civilian casualties had been very few, he said.
About 35,000 to 40,000 out of a total population of 350,000 remained in Mingora, Awan said. The army has been trucking in food and other supplies for them.
The army launched operations in Swats neighbouring districts of Lower Dir on April 26 and Buner on April 28, before extending the offensive to Swat on May 8, nearly three months after the government signed a peace agreement.
That deal with a pro-Taliban cleric and father-in-law of Fazlullah put three million people living in the northwest region of Malakand under Sharia law.
Senior officials have said the Sharia law decision will not be revoked despite the end of the ceasefire.
It is the demand of the people of Malakand. It is not the demand of the militants, said the administration chief for the region, Fazal Karim Khattak.