Taliban kill 10 Pakistani troops, capture 40 more in northwest
Jun 16, 2010
The Pakistani military was hit hard this week by the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban operating in Pakistans lawless northwest. Ten Frontier Corps troops were killed and 40 more were captured during fighting in Bajaur and Mohmand, two regions where the military has declared victory in the recent past.
The Afghan Taliban captured 40 paramilitary Frontier Corps troops yesterday after clashes along the border between the Pakistani tribal agencies of Bajaur and Mohmand. Major General Athar Abbas, Pakistan's top military spokesman, confirmed the attack and said the Afghan Taliban captured the troops after overrunning a Pakistani military outpost, Reuters reported. The Afghan Taliban released five of the troops at the Pakistani consulate in Jalalabad in Afghanistan's Nangarhar province, while the 35 other troops are still thought to be in the custody of the Taliban.
The report of the Afghan Taliban capturing Pakistani troops took place just one day after the terror group denied receiving support from Pakistan's government and intelligence services. Interestingly, the Afghan Taliban have not harmed the Pakistani troops despite claiming that Pakistan supports the US in Afghanistan.
Several major Taliban groups, including the Haqqani Network and the Tora Bora Military Front, operate in Nangarhar and are known to shelter and train across the border in Mohmand and Bajaur. Anwarul Haq Mujahid, the commander of the Tora Bora Military Front, and Maulvi Abdul Kabir, the former leader of the Peshawar Regional Military Council, are both said to be in Pakistani custody.
In a separate incident, 38 Pakistani Taliban and 10 Frontier Corps troops were killed in clashes that took place less than 10 miles away from the town of Khar, the administrative seat of Bajaur. The Pakistani military displayed the bodies of 18 Taliban fighters killed in air and artillery attacks. The military did not detail the circumstances of the deaths of the Frontier Corps troops.
Just yesterday, the Taliban issued pamphlets in Bajaur announcing their return and threatening to kill tribesmen who support the government. In the pamphlets, the Taliban "threatened the people, particularly the government employees and security forces, not to support the agenda of the US and its allies," The News reported. "The militants said that they would continue their jihad against the US and its supporters. They also urged the Taliban fighters not to surrender to the government and warned them and security forces of stern action."
Over the past 18 months, the Pakistani military has twice declared victory in Bajaur and Mohmand.
The first time was on March 1, 2009, when Major General Tariq Khan declared victory in Bajaur. "They have lost," Khan told reporters after a brutal campaign that began in August 2008 was declared to have ended. "Their resistance has broken down. We think we have secured this agency. The Taliban have lost their cohesion." And in the neighboring tribal agency of Mohmand, Colonel Saif Ullah claimed the Taliban had been defeated and that the region was "under the control of law enforcement agencies."
But the Taliban continued to exert control in Bajaur and Mohmand during 2009, killing tribal leaders who dared to work with the Pakistani government and military.
Earlier this year, General Khan again claimed victory in Bajaur. On March 2, 2010, one year and one day after claiming the Taliban had lost in Bajaur, Khan again declared victory. He said that more than 2,200 Taliban fighters had been killed during two years of military operations.
Yet although the military claimed to have defeated the Taliban in Bajaur and Mohmand in both 2009 and 2010, the senior leaders in these tribal agencies remain at large.
Faqir Mohammed, a senior leader in Hakeemullah Mehsud's Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan and a close ally to al Qaeda's Ayman Zawahiri, has not been killed or captured during the offensive. Military officials claimed Faqir was killed in August 2008, but the leader later surfaced. Faqir established a parallel government in Bajaur, complete with sharia courts, recruiting centers and training camps, taxation, and security forces.
The US has conducted several airstrikes Bajaur, including two attacks that targeted Zawahiri and another that killed Abu Sulayman Jazairi, a senior Algerian operative for al Qaeda who was the terror groups' operational commander tasked with planning attacks against the West.
Omar Khalid, the Taliban commander in Mohmand and a deputy of Hakeemullahs Taliban movement, also remains at large. He is considered one of the most effective and powerful leaders in the tribal areas after Hakeemullah and Faqir.
Khalid gained prominence in Mohmand during the summer of 2007 after taking over a famous shrine and renaming it the Red Mosque, after the radical mosque in Islamabad whose followers attempted to impose sharia in the capital. He became the dominant Taliban commander in Mohmand in July 2008 after defeating the Shah Sahib group, a rival pro-Taliban terror group with ties to the Lashkar-e-Taiba. During the summer of 2008, Khalid declared sharia in Mohmand.
