Two soldiers were killed Tuesday in a second day of ground operations in North Waziristan, a rugged border district that has long been a haven for Taliban and al Qaeda-linked insurgents. Jets and artillery began pounding militant targets in North Waziristan on June 15, launching an operation to regain full control of the district that Washington and other powers have demanded for years.
Major-General Asim Bajwa, the chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, insisted the current operation would target "terrorists of every hue and colour". "That means any terrorist who is on the soil of Pakistan right now within the area of operation," he told reporters. "The terrorists of various hue and colour are not wearing different caps, so this will be an indiscriminate operation - when they (soldiers) go there they will eliminate everyone without discrimination."
The minister for states and frontier regions Abdul Qadir Baloch, speaking at the same briefing, said the government was clear that no one would be allowed to use Pakistan as a base for attacks. "Anybody who has been involved in terrorist activities, whether he is Haqqani or not Haqqani, is very much included," he said. Nearly half a million people have fled the fighting in North Waziristan and Bajwa said the only people left there were militants.
So far, 376 militants and 19 soldiers have been killed in the offensive, according to the military. Bajwa urged Afghanistan to do more to track down TTP chief Fazlullah, who took over the TTP leadership last year after previous chief Hakimullah Mehsud was killed by a US drone.
"This is something we have been crying hoarse - this has been raised at every level," he said. "The leader of the TTP Mullah Fazlullah is sitting across the border in Kunar or Nuristan and Afghanistan needs to do something about it." Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif doggedly pursued talks with the TTP from February, but to little avail.
Residents told Reuters that the Haqqanis, who have close links with the Afghan Taliban but are less trusted by their counterparts in Pakistan, had left North Waziristan before the operation got underway. That was how they knew the army was finally coming after years of false alarms. "It was the first time members and family members of the Haqqani network left the houses they had been living in for more than 15 years," said a tribal elder in an area considered the stronghold of the Haqqani network.
Two Taliban commanders said the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, Maulana Fazlullah, had met militant leaders to offer them refuge at his base across the Afghan border before the operation started. "The prime purpose of his visit was to assure his people in North Waziristan of full support and accommodation in Afghanistan in case of a military operation," one commander said.
But when Fazlullah met members of the Haqqani network, they politely declined his offer, the commander said, noting they had "burnt their bridges" in Afghanistan. The Haqqanis moved elsewhere, he said. The Pakistani military points out that the Afghans tolerate sanctuaries on their side of the border for militants who attack the Pakistani state. Bajwa acknowledged it was possible that some militants had fled North Waziristan but said 376 had been killed so far. Many were foreigners, he said, especially Uzbeks, widely hated in Pakistan for their ferocious reputation.