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Militant stronghold captured in Pakistan

LOI SAM (Pakistan): A two-month offensive by Pakistani forces has driven militants from a stronghold through which Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters had poured into neighbouring Afghanistan to attack U.S. troops, said the army on Saturday.

But the operation has cost the lives of at least 95 civilians as well as 73 troops and left a trail of devastation in a region where poverty already drives young Muslims into the arms of extremists.

The military said its forces captured Loi Sam in the Bajur tribal region on Friday after a long and bloody struggle.

The town sits on a vital intersection of roads leading to the border as well as to three neighbouring Pakistan regions.

“Now we have complete control in this area from where miscreants used to go to Afghanistan, Mohmand, Dir and Swat,” army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told reporters brought to the intersection on Saturday. “Miscreants have been expelled or killed.”

Bajur is part of Pakistan’s tribal belt that has become the stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters waging an intensifying insurgency on both sides of the border.

Pakistan’s army launched an offensive in Bajur in early August, saying the region had become a “mega-sanctuary” for militants who had set up a virtual mini-state with Taliban-style courts.

American officials worried about record fatalities among their forces in Afghanistan have praised the operation and said it was helping reduce violence on the Afghan side.

However, there has been no halt to the regular American missile strikes on suspected militants hide-outs in other parts of Pakistan’s wild border region, despite

Islamabad’s repeated protests that its American allies are violating its sovereignty.

— AP

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