Troops mass for final assault on militants

ISLAMABAD—Director General military operations Major General Shujjah Pasha has said on Saturday that Swat Operation can be started any time. A private TV channel reported that DG military operation told during the briefing to foreign media that one division army has been deputed in Swat, out of which fifteen thousand security personnel are included adding that operation would be conducted on specific places to prevent the killing of innocent lives.
He said that a large number of foreigners have entered in Swat illegally through Afghanistan, which are not only supported by foreigners but also provided them ammunition and money as additional aid and they had found foreign currency notes in huge quantity. He further told that Pakistan has rendered major sacrifices for the elimination of terrorism and 966 security personnel have lost their lives and 20249 were wounded during the war against terrorism for the last six years.
He maintained that it is not only the responsibility of Pakistan to control law and order situation on border but also responsibility of Afghanistan and allied forces to initiate measures in this regard. He said that Pakistan has setup one thousand check posts on Pak-Afghan border while government of Afghanistan has set up only one hundred check posts. He concluded that Swat operation would come to an end in December and we would be succeeded at every cost.
The number of militants killed in the on-going operation in Swat has risen to 100 while the security forces are moving towards Saidu Sharif and all important roads of the area have been closed. The night curfew has been clamped in Swat and Malakand while the migration of people of the area is continuing, ISPR spokesman said while briefing media.
The Security Forces targeted the hideouts of the militants located in the suburb area of Airport of Imam Dairi Markaz Saidu Sharif, however, no reports of loss of life were reported. Firing was also exchanged between the Security Forces and the militants in District Shangla. The media in a briefing was informed that so far 100 militants have been killed in Swat Operation and the migration of people of the area was continued due to prevailing tense situation in the area.
Some 15,000 troops have massed for a major assault on Islamic militants in a scenic northern valley, whose fall has raised concern about Pakistan’s ability to withstand rising extremism, the army said Saturday.
Security forces have been fighting in the Swat Valley, a former tourist destination just 100 miles from the capital, since July, when a bloody army raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad sparked a wave of militant violence. Foreign fighters have allegedly joined the armed followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban cleric in the valley, amplifying Western fears that swaths of Pakistan near the Afghan border offer an increasingly safe haven for al-Qaida.
Washington is expressing concern about rising violence in Pakistan, where well over 1,000 security forces, civilians and militants have died in the past five months. A senior commander said Saturday that the army had recorded 28 suicide attacks in that period. “It’s not Iraq, but it is getting worse,” Michael Vickers, the Pentagon’s assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, told The Associated Press on Friday in Washington. “We would always like them (Pakistani authorities) to do more given the importance of the problem,” he said—Agencies