The offensive is concentrated in
Mohmand... Named for the Mohmand clan of the Sarban Pahstuns, a truculent, quarrelsome lot for the most part. In Pakistain, the Mohmands infest their eponymous Agency, spreading down to the plains of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar, Charsadda, and Mardan. Mohmands are also scattered throughout Pakistan in urban areas including Bloody Karachi, Lahore, and Quetta. In Afghanistan they are mainly found in Nangarhar and Kunar...
district, part of the semi-autonomous region that Washington considers a global nexus of Al-Qaeda and Taliban.
"Over the last few days about 22,000 people have been registered in the two camps that UNHCR has helped to set up," UN Refugee Agency spokeswoman Ariane Rummery told AFP.
Amjad Ali, the top administrative official in Ghalanai, the main town of Mohmand, confirmed the number.
"We are providing them with food, non-food items and tents," he told AFP.
Ali said the ground and air offensive is targeting local Taliban and other fighters who have decamped operations elsewhere in the semi-autonomous tribal belt, including the premier fortress of Wazoo.
"We have sealed the border with Afghanistan and also sent in troop reinforcements," he said.
An official in Pakistain's Frontier Corps paramilitary said more than 70 Islamic fascisti had been killed over five days of fighting and confirmed that thousands of people have been displaced.
Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Information Minister in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
, attributed a recent spike in kabooms on civilians to the fresh operation.
"Whenever action is taken in the tribal areas, Islamic fascisti react here in the settled areas. Fresh kabooms are reaction of the Mohmand operation," he told AFP in the thriving provincial capital Peshawar.