Thousands flee Pak tribal belt ahead of offensive

Pakistani jets pounded militant hide-outs along the Afghan border and killed at least nine guerrillas, intelligence officials said yesterday, part of a stepped-up campaign of airstrikes before an expected government offensive in South Waziristan.
Tens of thousands of civilians have fled Pakistan's tribal South Waziristan region fearing an imminent army offensive against Taliban militants, officials said yesterday.
Authorities have registered 90,000 people displaced from the tribal belt on the Afghan border since August, with a fresh exodus after a weekend hostage siege at army headquarters near Islamabad deeply embarrassed the military.
The government in June ordered an operation into the mountainous northwest stronghold of the Taliban and al-Qaeda, but so far only air raids and occasional artillery strikes have hit rebel sanctuaries.
However, a wave of Taliban attacks in Pakistan that has killed 125 people since last Monday has stoked fears that the long-awaited ground offensive is looming, sending more people fleeing.
The military launched a new wave of air attacks across the militant heartland late Tuesday and early Wednesday, hitting at least five different areas, two intelligence officials said. One attack on a hide-out in Makeen killed three insurgents, and another in Barwand killed six, they said.
Meanwhile, forces in an army camp in Razmak shelled militant positions in the surrounding mountains, they said.
"Around 90,000 people have left the area (since August) and have been shifted to safer places in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank," said Shahab Ali Shah, the top administrative official in South Waziristan.
An AFP reporter in Dera Ismail Khan saw dozens of families entering the city in cars and trucks, packed full of whatever belongings the panicked residents had managed to gather before fleeing their homes.
"Again people have started coming out of the area because of the fear of an army operation," Amir Latif, chief administrative official in Tank district, told AFP. "We have started registering them and giving them help."
Government official Hameedullah Khan said about 60,000 people had registered in Dera Ismail Khan, with the rest taking sanctuary in Tank and elsewhere.
Most people were flocking to relative's homes or were renting houses, while officials said the government planned to establish one refugee camp in Dera Ismail Khan and another in Tank.
An anti-Taliban offensive in and around northwest Swat valley earlier this year forced nearly two million people from their homes, creating a massive humanitarian crisis in impoverished Pakistan.
Most have since returned home after the military in July declared the area safe. But unrest continues, with a suicide bomb by Taliban rebels in Shangla district near Swat killing 45 people on Monday.
The army headquarters siege and three recent suicide blasts have shown the threat from the Pakistani Taliban is far from quashed, despite the death of their leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US drone strike on August 5.
New leader Hakimullah Mehsud has vowed to avenge the August missile attack in South Waziristan, which is also home to al-Qaeda fighters who fled Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion.
Military officials are reluctant to say when they will move into the tribal belt, amid wrangling over a giant US aid package that the army says amounts to a violation of Pakistani sovereignty.
"We are constantly targeting them by air, long-range artillery and attack helicopters, so this is softening the target," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told the private Dawn television channel late Tuesday.
"The whole area is under siege. All the entry and exit points have been blocked and we are constantly targeting the hideouts and the stronghold of the militants, including foreign militants.
"When and where the military will open the ground offensive is a matter of judgement by the military hierarchy."
Residents said that life was becoming increasingly difficult.
"We were facing food shortages as forces have blocked various roads. Most of the residents are shifting their families to safer places," said Mohammad Hashim Khan, who left his hometown for Dera Ismail Khan on Sunday.
Mohammad Ubaid Khan Mehsud, from the Taliban stronghold of Makeen, said he had to ensure his 23-member family was safe. "We left the area because of the constant bombing and air attacks."
Analysts say that an operation in Waziristan will be a tougher task then flushing militants out of Swat, with the Taliban entrenched in a hostile terrain and able to slip easily across the Afghan frontier.