BANNU – Pakistan unleashed helicopter gunships and artillery and killed scores of Taliban fighters, officials said yesterday, after opening a second front against militants near their stronghold in the Waziristan tribal region.
Already in the final stages of an operation to clear Islamist fighters from Swat valley, the army went on the offensive in Bannu district on Tuesday after up to 800 militants infiltrated from Waziristan.
US officials, worried the Taliban could drive Pakistan into chaos, have welcomed the Swat offensive and there has been talk that Waziristan, a hub of Taliban and al-Qaeda activity, would be next. At the gateway to Waziristan, Bannu is 150km southwest of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province (NWFP), where a suicide truck bomb attack on a hotel killed at least nine people on Tuesday.
A military statement said yesterday that 66 militants had been killed in Bannu, South Waziristan and Swat in the previous 24 hours.
More than 130 militants have been killed in Bannu since the army began operations there two days ago, according to military officers and a senior civilian official. Independent casualty estimates were unavailable.
“The operation is going on very well. Helicopter gunships, artillery, everything is being used,” Kamran Zeb, the top administrator in Bannu, said. – (Reuters)