Pakistan says Taliban war is spilling over from tribal areas
By AKI-ADN Kronos
Taliban leader in Pakistan. AKI Photo.
(AKI) – By Syed Saleem Shahzad – The Taliban rebellion which has gripped Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan is gaining strength and threatening to escalate in other parts of the country.
The tribal areas of the NWFP that border Afghanistan are steadily falling to a creeping Taliban-led militancy. Military operations have proved ineffective and the militants have rejected offers of any ceasefire while government offices, the Chief Minister’s house and military camps are now under attack in the area as well.
More than 100 Pakistani soldiers have been captured during operations to control militants in the Bajaur agency and the armed forces do not know about how to handle operations in the tribal areas. If security forces use jet fighters, militants slip into the thick forests of Kunar in Afghanistan through the maze of mountains on the border and if they advance overland, they immediately come under attack.
On Wednesday, all exit and entry routes leading to the Chief Minister’s House and the Governor’s House were closed, after the provincial capital of Peshawar came under intense attack this week,
Four rockets were fired on the airport on Monday and again Tuesday. The main oil depot of the city which provides the city’s fuel supplies and power generating stations, came under attack on Sunday but fortunately the target missed or the city would have been plunged into darkness for two weeks.
The Kohot Tunnel, the main trade route of the province has been closed for the last sixteen days due to military operations in the Dara Adam Khail.
On Tuesday, the impartial Taliban commander Abdul Wali declared war on the security forces in the adjacent Mohmand Agency, immediately to the south of Bajaur, and sent hundreds of new militants to attack security forces there.
The region around Peshawar, capital of the North-West Frontier Province, including Shabqadar, Charsada, Matni has been a battle ground between the security forces and the Taliban.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.2509469117
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