"Knock it off! Youse trying to get me killed?"
Pakistani security forces have been pounding Taliban positions in three northwest districts since last month, and on Saturday moved into Mingora, the business and administrative hub of the scenic Swat region.
"Maulana Fazlullah has Khan accused the military of killing civilians during its fierce onslaught in the districts of Lower Dir, Buner and Swat, where Taliban fighters have infiltrated towns and villages in a bid to impose a harsh brand of Islamic law. "We will fight for the enforcement of shariah law till the last drop of our blood," Khan said.
"Except that we've stopped."
The offensive in the Taliban bastion of Swat, about 120 kilometers (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, is the military's most concerted effort to roll back a spreading Taliban insurgency that has thrown the nuclear-armed country's future into question. "Look at the size of the city, the number of militants present there, the number of houses to be searched," military spokesman Maj.Gen. Athar Abbas said of the fighting in the town of Mingora. "It'll take at least a week to clear it," he said.
Pakistan says nearly 1,160 Taliban fighters and 69 soldiers have died in the offensive launched in the districts of Lower Dir on April 26, Buner on April 28 and Swat on May 8, but those tolls cannot be confirmed independently.
And they smell suspicious. If the Talibs are that easy to kill -- which they might be -- then the Mighty Pak Army should have been wiping the floor with them all along. But a 16:1 kill ratio has a whiff of something other than attar of roses about it.