Pakistani soldiers backed by war planes and helicopter gunships killed 60 militants in a major offensive waged against insurgents near the Afghan border, a security official said on Tuesday.
Pakistani forces launched the crackdown in Mohmand district as early as the weekend but a paramilitary official said “60 hardcore militants” were killed in the last 24 hours, including local insurgent commanders.
The operation was made public as General David Petraeus, the US commander for southwest Asia and a key advocate of an imminent US troop surge in Afghanistan, held talks with the Pakistani government about the insurgency.
Pakistan’s rugged tribal belt is a key battleground in the US-led “war on terror” and home to hundreds if not thousands of Taliban and al-Qaeda linked militants, who fled Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in late 2001.
“The operation is going on in Mohmand. The forces have secured a large area in the troubled district and militant strongholds have been destroyed,” the paramilitary official said on condition of anonymity.
Mohmand is a known Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold.
Another security official said the militants suffered losses in attacks by “war planes, helicopter gunships and use of artillery and shelling by tanks.”
Those killed included two commanders of the Taliban militants, he said.
“We have confirmation that commander Anwar Sayed and commander Shakirullah were killed in the operation today,” the second security official said.
Their bases were also destroyed, the official added.
He also said that troops demolished or torched at least 27 houses belonging to tribesmen who offered shelter to the militants. Five civilians were wounded in the shelling, he added.
None of the statistics given out by the Pakistani security officials could be confirmed through independent sources.
Residents who confirmed the offensive said helicopters also targeted insurgent camps and predicted early Tuesday that “casualties may go up.”
Tuesday’s military operation came 10 days after a major gunbattle in the same region where hundreds of foreign militants attacked Pakistani forces, sparking clashes that left six soldiers and 40 militants dead, officials said.
That was the biggest recent assault against Pakistani security forces, who are battling to flush out militants in parts of the restive northwest.
Nationwide, a wave of attacks carried out by Islamist extremists across Pakistan have killed more than 1,500 people in the past 17 months.
Officials charged that most of the insurgents infiltrated the border from Afghanistan and were backed up by local Taliban fighters.
CONFRONTATION: The water cannon attack was the second this month on the Philippine supply boat ‘Unaizah May 4,’ after an incident on March 5 The China Coast Guard yesterday morning blocked a Philippine supply vessel and damaged it with water cannons near a reef off the Southeast Asian country, the Philippines said. The Philippine military released video of what it said was a nearly hour-long attack off the Second Thomas Shoal (Renai Shoal, 仁愛暗沙) in the contested South China Sea, where Chinese ships have unleashed water cannons and collided with Philippine vessels in similar standoffs in the past few months. The China Coast Guard and other vessels “once again harassed, blocked, deployed water cannons, and executed dangerous maneuvers” against a routine rotation and resupply mission to
GLOBAL COMBAT AIR PROGRAM: The potential purchasers would be limited to the 15 nations with which Tokyo has signed defense partnership and equipment transfer deals Japan’s Cabinet yesterday approved a plan to sell future next-generation fighter jets that it is developing with the UK and Italy to other nations, in the latest move away from the country’s post-World War II pacifist principles. The contentious decision to allow international arms sales is expected to help secure Japan’s role in the joint fighter jet project, and is part of a move to build up the Japanese arms industry and bolster its role in global security. The Cabinet also endorsed a revision to Japan’s arms equipment and technology transfer guidelines to allow coproduced lethal weapons to be sold to nations
Thousands of devotees, some in a state of trance, gathered at a Buddhist temple on the outskirts of Bangkok renowned for sacred tattoos known as Sak Yant, paying their respects to a revered monk who mastered the practice and seeking purification. The gathering at Wat Bang Phra Buddhist temple is part of a Thai Wai Khru ritual in which devotees pay homage to Luang Phor Pern, the temple’s formal abbot, who died in 2002. He had a reputation for refining and popularizing the temple’s Sak Yant tattoo style. The idea that tattoos confer magical powers has existed in many parts of Asia
ON ALERT: A Russian cruise missile crossed into Polish airspace for about 40 seconds, the Polish military said, adding that it is constantly monitoring the war to protect its airspace Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and the western region of Lviv early yesterday came under a “massive” Russian air attack, officials said, while a Russian cruise missile breached Polish airspace, the Polish military said. Russia and Ukraine have been engaged in a series of deadly aerial attacks, with yesterday’s strikes coming a day after the Russian military said it had seized the Ukrainian village of Ivanivske, west of Bakhmut. A militant attack on a Moscow concert hall on Friday that killed at least 133 people also became a new flash point between the two archrivals. “Explosions in the capital. Air defense is working. Do not