Pakistani reinforcements are heading to the South Waziristan region on the Afghan border where government forces are trying to wipe out strongholds of a militant accused of killing opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.The announcement on reinforcements came a day after a top U.S. commander met Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, and after a week of militant attacks on paramilitary bases in the region and military counter-attacks.
More than 100 militants and 15 government soldiers have been killed in the clashes, according to government figures. "In the past one week there was an escalation in attacks by the militants ... therefore it was felt necessary to reinforce these forts," military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said on Wednesday, referring to remote paramilitary bases. He declined to say how many reinforcements were being sent.
The fighting has pitted government troops against militants loyal to Baitullah Mehsud, a Taliban commander suspected of orchestrating the assassination of Bhutto last month. Abbas denied the military had launched an offensive against Mehsud and his men but said government forces wanted to clear out his hideouts once and for all. "There is no offensive in the region but there are strongholds and hideouts of the militants and they are being engaged so they are knocked out from the area on a permanent basis," he said.
Mehsud has been blamed also for a string of attacks in a suicide bomb campaign that intensified after commandos stormed a radical mosque complex in Islamabad in July. On Wednesday last week, his men attacked and captured another fort in Waziristan.
Admiral William Fallon, the head of the U.S. military's Central Command, met Pakistani army chief Kayani at his headquarters in Rawalpindi on Tuesday for talks on the security situation. Officials declined to elaborate. Fallon told reporters in Florida last week that Pakistan was increasingly willing to fight Islamist militants and accept U.S. help, without saying what kind of support. But he added that he believed Pakistani leaders wanted a "more robust" effort by the United States to train and advise their forces in counter-insurgency efforts. The United States has already announced plans to step up training of Pakistan's Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force recruited from tribal lands.
Abbas said operations were going on in up to three different places on Wednesday and one soldier had been killed in a rocket attack on a camp. Many al Qaeda and Taliban militants took refuge in Waziristan and other border areas after U.S.-led troops drove Afghanistan's Taliban government from power in late 2001.