Key Taliban-held Pak town recaptured
Pakistani troops have recaptured a key town from al-Qaeda and Taliban militants after a two-month operation in which 1,500 rebels and 73 soldiers were killed, the military said yesterday.
Security forces backed by helicopter gunships drove insurgents out of Loisam, a strategic town in the Bajaur tribal region bordering Afghanistan, which is at a crossroads of extremist supply routes, it said.
Islamabad has previously hailed its operation in Bajaur as proof that it is responding to US and Afghan demands to take action against extremists in Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas.
The extremists are accused of launching attacks on US and other foreign troops operating across the border in Afghanistan.
"Loisam has been captured after stiff resistance," Major General Tariq Khan, head of the paramilitary Frontier Corps force, told reporters in Khar, the regional capital.
The capture of Loisam by hundreds of militants earlier this year prompted the launch of the operation in Bajaur in August. More than 200,000 Pakistanis have been displaced by the clashes.
The army took journalists to Loisam and showed fortified trenches, a tunnel network, caves and houses allegedly used by the militants to fight pitched battles with Pakistani forces.
It is some of the fiercest fighting between Pakistani forces and Islamist militants since former military ruler Pervez Musharraf joined the US-led "war on terror" in 2001.
"More than 1,500 militants have been killed during the operation and security forces have gained major successes," Khan said, updating a toll given during a similar visit about a month ago.
Security forces have captured more than 300 foreign militants, mainly from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in the operation, he said.
Forty-two army troops and 31 Frontier Corps personnel "embraced martyrdom," in the operation, Khan said, adding that 172 troops and 95 Frontier Corps men were wounded.
But he added that the operation "could go for several months before the area is completely cleared of militants".
Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists who fled the US-led toppling of Afghanistan's hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 and have since set up training camps.
Many militants had gathered in Bajaur in recent months after being driven out of other Pakistani tribal regions, especially North and South Waziristan hundreds of kilometres (miles) to the south.
While Pakistani forces have been concentrating on Bajaur, most of a recent spate of suspected US missile attacks on Pakistan have focused on Waziristan.
The US strikes have been in areas dominated by Taliban leaders who Pakistani security officials say are not involved in fighting with the Pakistani military.
A US official said on Thursday that a small contingent of US military instructors have begun a training programme aimed at turning the Frontier Corps into an effective counter-insurgency force.
About 25 US military personnel last week began instructing Pakistani trainers at a location in Pakistan outside the troubled tribal areas where the Frontier Corps operates, the official said.
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