Pakistan army seizes Taleban stronghold

Published on Saturday 24 October 2009 19:56

PAKISTAN government forces were celebrating yesterday after capturing the home town of a Taleban chief.

Kotkai was taken after fierce fighting in a week-long offensive in Waziristan against Islamist rebels on the frontier with Afghanistan involving 28,000 troops, fighter bombers and helicopters.

Kotkai was the home of Pakistani Taleban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and lies on the road to the major militant base of Sararogha.

More than 150,000 people have fled fighting in South Waziristan so far, the United Nations has said.

The battle for Kotkai cost the lives of 13 militants and two soldiers, officials said. Journalists have been banned from the war zone.

The army was believed to have briefly taken the town early last week, only to retreat on Tuesday amid fierce resistance, in which seven soldiers were said to have been killed. Since then troops have controlled the heights around the town, besieging it from the air and ground until their final push to occupy it.

An unnamed official said: "Security forces took control of Kotkai overnight and a clearance operation is in progress.

"It is a major breakthrough because it was the stronghold of the Taleban and hometown of Mehsud and Qari Hussain (a reputed trainer of suicide bombers]," he added. Pakistani soldiers are now believed to be removing Taleban landmines and booby traps from the town.

There are thought to be between 10,000 and 20,000 Taleban fighters in South Waziristan, backed by hundreds of foreigners, including Uzbeks, Chechens and Arabs. Pakistan believes the region has been used as a base for militant attacks on its more stable plains cities around the Indus River.

South Waziristan is part of Pakistan's semi-autonomous tribal belt, a rugged stretch of land along the Afghan frontier where al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is rumoured to be hiding.

Pakistan is under intense pressure to clear its tribal areas of insurgents, many of whom are blamed for attacks on US and Nato troops in Afghanistan. In the 19th and early 20th century British troops fought frontier rebels there.

The US is suspected of launching scores of missile strikes in the area over the past year, killing several top militants. The latest targeted the tribal region of Bajur yesterday, local official Mohammad Jamil said. Twenty-two people are believed to have died in the blast. Jamil said the target appeared to be Faqir Mohammad, a prominent Taleban leader, but that he is believed to have escaped.

The latest official military figures put the death toll for militants at 142 and that of army soldiers at 20.