Pakistan closes in on Swat capital

Monday, May 18, 2009 at 2:16 AM Posted by Beijing News


Pakistan said Saturday troops were closing in on a key Taliban-held town as the United Nations confirmed that more than 1.1 million desperate people had been displaced in two weeks of fighting.

Hundreds of thousands of civilians have streamed down from the mountains of the Swat valley and two neighbouring districts since late April seeking safety with relatives or in government-run camps away from the relentless offensive.

"We have registered since May 2, 1,171,000 displaced persons," UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told a news conference.

They join another 500,000 people who fled bouts of fighting in the northwest last year, where extremist Taliban militants have been battling to widen their area of control and impose a harsh brand of Islamic law.

"Each person has suffered a lot having to abandon their community, sometimes their families, their houses, property, coming with nothing," said Guterres, whose agency has called for hundreds of millions of dollars for the crisis.

"This is not the moment for symbolic gestures. This is not the moment for symbolic forms of support. This is the moment for massive support," he said.

Exhausted and living under canvas in camps that offer little protection from the searing heat of the Pakistani plains, far from the cool mountain air to which they are accustomed, the displaced lashed out at the army offensive.

"The government should give us peace. We have no need for tents, for food or for money," said Hayat Ullah, a grandfather who came with his wife, daughters and children from Mingora.

"We didn't come here because of the Taliban, we came here after the shelling and bombardment of the government," he said in the government-run camp Jalala in Mardan district where children queued for tea and ice for their parents.

In the northwest city of Peshawar, where thousands of people displaced by the conflict have sought refuge, a car bomb ripped through a packed street killing 11 people, including women and children, on Saturday, officials said.

The military says up to 15,000 troops were taking on about 4,000 well-armed fighters in Swat, where Islamabad has ordered a battle to "eliminate" Islamist militants, branded by Washington the greatest terror threat to the West.

The militants' advance to within 100 kilometres 60 miles of Islamabad raised concern in the United States, which has put Pakistan at the centre of its efforts to contain a Taliban-led insurgency in neighbouring Afghanistan.

According to combined death tolls released by the military, more than 980 militants and 45 soldiers have been killed in the three-pronged onslaught launched in Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat last week.

Medical officials, journalists and aid workers, who have been largely unable to access the combat zone, have not been able to confirm those figures. Those fleeing the violence have spoken of civilian dead and wounded.

The military said troops were approaching Mingora, capital of Swat, to intercept militants trying to flee what residents believe is an imminent military offensive to re-take control of the city held by Islamist fighters.

"Security forces are getting closer to Mingora city to isolate and block the movement of fleeing terrorists," spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told a news conference updating reporters on the 21-day offensive in the northwest.

The government on Saturday relaxed a curfew for eight hours in Mingora to allow civilians to flee, raising expectations of a military rush towards the town -- control of which would be vital to win back the mountainous district.

Elsewhere in northwest Pakistan, a suspected US missile strike in the semi-autonomous tribal region of North Waziristan near the Afghan border killed at least 25 militants, two of them described as "foreigners".





A participant attends the 17th Life Ball in Vienna. AFP/Joe Klamar

0 comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)