85 killed in Pak air, ground offensive in Dir district

Succumbing to international pressure to contain the advancing Taliban, Pakistan today mounted a major offensive against them in Buner, using fighter jets to pound their hideouts, even as 75 militants and 10 soldiers were killed in fighting in a nearby district.

“Enough is enough,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said as he warned that “a handful of militants cannot challenge the writ of the government” and asserted that “strict action” will be taken against the Taliban who had come as close as 100 kms away from the federal capital.

Most of Dir district in North West Frontier Province had been cleared of Taliban fighters after an offensive that left 70 to 75 militants and 10 security personnel dead, chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said.

The operation in Dir was launched on Sunday and a “few pockets of resistance” that remained would be cleared soon, he told a news conference in the garrison city of Rawalpindi.

Abbas said the operation was extended to Buner district, located 100 km from Islamabad, this afternoon. Helicopter gunships and fighter jets are backing paramilitary Frontier Corps and army troops in the area, he said.

Over 200 militants are present in Dir while the number of Taliban fighters in Buner is 450 to 500 and they have weapons like Kalashnikovs, rocket launchers, grenades, mines and explosives.

The objective of the offensive in Buner is to “eliminate or expel” the militants, he said. The government and the army had shown significant restraint in the face of an increase in Taliban activities in Buner and Dir and the operation was launched only after the authorities had no option left, Abbas said.