Pakistani forces battle Taliban in South Waziristan

Pakistani forces exchanged heavy fire on Sunday with Taliban defending their heartland, a day after launching an offensive aimed at bringing the writ of the state to lawless lands on the Afghan border. The army said 60 militants and five soldiers had been killed in the first 24 hours of a long-awaited offensive on the global Islamist hub of South Waziristan. Soldiers were securing territory while some militants were fleeing, it said. There was no independent verification of the casualty toll.

The offensive follows militant attacks in different parts of the country, including an assault on army headquarters in which more than 150 people were killed. About 28,000 soldiers are battling an estimated 10,000 hard-core Taliban, including about 1,000 Uzbek fighters and some Arab al Qaeda members. The militants have had years to prepare their defences in the land of arid mountains and sparse forest cut by dried-up creeks and ravines.

• "Tackling the other Taliban", The Economist, 10/1/09.
  
• "Pakistan: The Militant Jihadi Threat", International Crisis Group, 3/13/09.
  
• "Hotbed of Terror", Council on Foreign Relations, 8/11/08.
• "The Taliban of Afghanistan", Council on Foreign Relations, 8/3/09.
• "Pakistan's New Generation of Terrorists", Council on Foreign Relations, 2/6/08.
• "Pakistan's Tribal Areas", Council on Foreign Relations, 10/26/07.
  

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Postcards from the Edge: Pakistan

Pakistan rocked by fresh attacks

A series of attacks on security forces in Pakistan has killed at least 38 people. In Lahore, militants attacked offices of the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), as well as two police academies. At least 26 people died.

In the northern town of Kohat, 11 were killed in a car bomb attack on police. Then a bomb in the city of Peshawar in the north-west killed a child. Suicide attacks in Pakistan in the past two weeks have killed more than 150 people. The Peshawar car bomb went off outside a housing complex for government employees. A number of people were wounded.

Thursday's attacks come ahead of an expected military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in their South Waziristan stronghold on the Afghan border.

Pakistan: The South Waziristan Migration

Pakistan has been a busy place over the past few weeks. The Pakistani armed forces have been conducting raids and airstrikes against the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other foreign Islamist fighters in Bajaur Agency, a district inside Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), while wrapping up their preparations for a major military offensive into South Waziristan. The United States has conducted several successful missile attacks targeting militants hiding in areas along the Afghan-Pakistani border using unmanned aerial vehicles.

Threatened by these developments — especially the actions of the Pakistani military — the TTP and its allies have struck back. They have used larger, vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices (VBIEDs) in attacks close to their bases in the Pakistani badlands to conduct mass-casualty attacks against soft targets in Peshawar and the Swat Valley. They have also used small arms and small suicide devices farther from their bases to attack targets in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the respective seats of Pakistan’s military and civilian power.

Pakistan Taliban bombing spree could spur backlash

Facing a looming assault from the military, the Al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban launched a spree of brazen attacks and a media blitz over the past week that appeared to say "bring it on. Today, the military responded by bombing the Taliban's hub in South Waziristan as government forces prepare for a ground offensive there.

The Taliban have recently killed at least 112 people – including United Nations workers, peacekeeper recruits in the restive Swat Valley, and a general and two colonels in the Pakistani Army. They also infiltrated Army headquarters over the weekend. But experts on the conflict sense an underlying insecurity behind their tactics.

"For [the militants], it's essentially a battle for their survival. If they lose the sanctuary in South Waziristan, that's pretty much the end of the game for them," says Rifaat Hussain, a security expert at Quaid-i-Azam University in Islamabad. "For them, offense is a defensive strategy."

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