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Pakistan bombs Taliban hideout

Pakistani fighter jets on Tuesday pounded Taliban sanctuaries, as the militant group claimed responsibility for the latest in a wave of attacks that have killed 125 people in a week.

Fighter jets launched another round of bombing raids, killing six suspected insurgents in South Waziristan, the semi-autonomous region near Afghanistan and a known stronghold of Taliban and al-­Qaeda-linked rebels, officials said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, meanwhile, vowed to wipe out the Islamist extremist threat in Pakistan, with a fierce military operation into the Taliban’s mountain sanctuaries believed to be imminent.

The army claims to have already quashed militants in the one-time tourist paradise of Swat valley, but on Monday a teenage suicide bomber struck in the neighboring northwest district of Shangla, killing 45 people.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for that attack, with spokesman Azam Tariq saying: “This is revenge for our martyrs … This is part of the series of attacks that we are carrying out. Wait and see more.”

The group have also claimed responsibility for a weekend hostage drama at the Pakistani army headquarters, which hit at the heart of one of the most powerful institutions in the nuclear-armed country.

Local media have reported that the threat to army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi was known in advance by police, and have questioned why the siege which left 23 people dead was not thwarted.

On Oct. 5, the News published extracts of a correspondence between the interior ministry and Punjab authorities, warning that militants in army uniforms were planning to target headquarters — exactly what happened days later.

“Don’t blame intelligence agencies, they have foiled several planned attacks, we foiled at least 100 attacks before they were carried out,” Malik told reporters.

A spokesperson for Punjab Senator Pervaiz Rashid said the provincial home department had dispatched a confidential letter to the army and other departments in July highlighting possible targets.

“It was mentioned categorically in the letter that terrorists have been planning to get into GHQ [General Headquarters] clad in military uniform and using a military vehicle,” the official said.

Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has said the army HQ attack was planned in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi flew to Washington on Tuesday to air concerns about a US$7.5 billion aid package that has raised hackles among the country’s military, officials said.

US Democratic Senator John Kerry on Tuesday strongly denied that the package would impinge on Pakistan’s sovereignty at a joint news conference with Qureshi.

Kerry, a close ally of US President Barack Obama, embarked on a tour of Pakistan and Afghanistan yesterday, said Tomeika Bowden, a spokeswoman for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which Kerry chairs.

Meanwhile, tens of thousands of civilians have fled South Waziristan region fearing an imminent army offensive against Taliban militants, officials said yesterday.

Military and government officials vowed in June to launch an operation into the mountainous northwest stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but so far only air raids and occasional artillery strikes have hit rebel sanctuaries.

“People are coming out of the area and around 90,000 people have left the area and have been shifted to safer places in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank,” said Shahab Ali Shah, the top administrative official in South Waziristan.

“People have started coming out of the area because of the fear of an army operation,” said Amir Latif, chief administrative official in Tank district.

Hameedullah Khan, a senior government official in Dera Ismail Khan, said his district had registered about 8,300 families, or about 60,000 people.
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