Pakistan claims success in war against Taliban

Reuters:

Pakistani forces have turned the corner in the country's main front in its war against militancy with the capture of a strategically important village after heavy fighting, the commander of the operation said on Saturday.

The major-general in charge of the offensive in the Bajaur region on the Afghan border said his men were estimated to have killed more than 1,500 militants since August while 73 soldiers had been killed.

There has been no independent verification of the military's casualty estimate but soldiers on the front said fighting had been fierce with well-organized and well-supplied militants battling hard from networks of tunnels and fortified compounds.

The army has pushed militants off a road running west from the region's main town of Khar, with villages along the road suffering heavy damage. Villagers fled before the fighting.

Militants remained a few kilometers either side of the road and were exchanging intermittent fire with security forces on Saturday when the military took a group of reporters to the destroyed village of Loisam captured in the past few days.

"The worst is over I think things from here onward will be much easier. In my personal feeling, I think we've turned the corner," said Major-General Tariq Khan, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, who is in charge of the offensive.

Bajaur is one of seven semi-autonomous ethnic Pashtun regions in northwest Pakistan, known as tribal agencies, where al Qaeda and Taliban have been expanding their influence in recent years.

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I suspect the worse is not over. In order to sustain its progress Pakistan must sustain its efforts against the enemy. They can't pull back and relax the way they usually do after a battle with the militants. They need to keep the pressure on the enemy and not give him time to regroup in another area. Otherwise they are just playing whack-a-mole.

What the battle does demonstrate is that Pakistan's army is capable of defeating the enemy if it is allowed to do so. That is important and could make the difference in the war in Afghanistan. Destroying the Pakistan sanctuaries is the key to victory there too.

The Pakistan commander claims that the area they just took control over was the center of gravity of the foreign fighters, i.e. al Qaeda. However, the attacks on the foreign fighters by US Predator Hellfire missiles suggest they are fairly disbursed.