Taliban chief’s town taken, Pakistan says

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani soldiers captured the hometown of the country’s Taliban chief Saturday, a strategic and symbolic initial prize as the army pushes deeper into a militant stronghold along the Afghan border. An army spokesman said the Taliban were in disarray, with many deserting the ranks.

The 8-day-old air and ground offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region is a key test of nuclear-armed Pakistan’s campaign against Islamist militancy. It has already spurred a civilian exodus and deadly retaliatory attacks.

Washington has encouraged the operation in the northwest because many militants there are believed to shelter al-Qaida leaders and are suspected of involvement in attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military has also kept up its own missile strikes in the lawless tribal belt, including a suspected one that killed 22 people Saturday.

Kotkai, most of whose 5,000 residents have already fled, is the home of the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, and one of his top deputies, Qari Hussain, who is believed to be the organizer and trainer of the group’s suicide bombing squads. It also lies along the way to the major militant base of Sararogha, making it a strategically helpful catch.

The fight was intense, taking several days and involving aerial bombardment, officials said.

In an interview, a local government official said soldiers had raised a Pakistani flag over Mehsud’s destroyed home and set up a checkpoint at the town’s entrance to keep insurgents from returning.

The majority of homes in the town were converted into “strong bunkers” by militants, and the area also was home to a training camp for suicide bombers, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told reporters. Troops had begun ridding it of land mines and roadside bombs.

“Thank God, this is the army’s very big success,” Abbas said. “The good news is that [communications] intercepts show that there are differences forging among the Taliban ranks. Their aides are deserting them.”

Abbas said some of the fleeing Taliban have shaved their beards and cut their hair to try to blend in with the civilian population. Taliban spokesmen could not immediately be reached for comment.

Three soldiers and 21 militants died in the most recent fighting in the region, the army said. Because it has blocked access to South Waziristan, independently verifying the data is all but impossible.

The government has forged ahead in South Waziristan despite a wave of violence that has put the nation on edge. Some 200 people have been killed in a variety of militant attacks across the country this month.

At a military briefing Saturday, the information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, acknowledged that the attacks, which have focused on police and government sites, had taken a serious toll. But he insisted that “the nation will not be terrorized.”

DUG IN AHEAD

The U.N. says some 155,000 civilians have fled the region. In Dera Ismail Khan, a gritty townnear South Waziristan where many of those fleeing have congregated, the refugees reacted to the news of Kotkai’s capture with suspicion.

“They are making tall claims of conquering Waziristan in a few weeks, but we think this is not do-able even in five to six years,” said Azam Khan Mehsud, who hails from the Makeen area.

Others noted that Pakistanhad failed at least three times before to wrest the region from the Taliban and said they feared the damage the army might cause.

“Years ago, the army suddenly started an operation, and we all had to leave our area in the clothes we were wearing,” said Abdul Samad Khan, 65, a farmer from the Spinkai Raghzai area. “When we returned to our area all our homes were either bombed, bulldozed or torched. Our animals were missing. Now imagine, if they come with more might, what they will do with our area.”

The army has deployed some 30,000 troops to South Waziristan to take on some 12,000 Taliban militants, including up to 1,500 foreign fighters, among them Uzbeks and Arabs.

The farther the army tries to penetrate into the Taliban sanctuary in the northeast corner of South Waziristan, the harder the fighting will get as soldiers encounter deep defensive positions dug into the sides of mountains that the guerrillas will battle hard to keep, military analysts and residents of the area said.

On the southeast axis of the army’s attack into the Taliban stronghold, soldiers will soon encounter the defensive positions leading to Kaniguram, a village about 6,700 feet high that serves as the hide-out of the Uzbek fighters, a former resident of the area said. The Uzbeks, the most hardened and tenacious of fighters, are likely to put up formidable resistance, he said.

“The military’s movement is faster than in their previous campaigns,” a former government official from North Waziristan said, referring to three short-lived army campaigns that ended in negotiated settlements with the Taliban. “But the more they get inside the sanctuary, the more they will be bogged down.”

U.S. MISSILE STRIKES

The U.S. has launched scores of missile strikes at militant targets in Pakistan’s tribal belt over the past year, killing several top insurgents including former Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud.

The latest strike hit Chuhatra village in the tribal region of Bajur on Saturday, local government official Mohammad Jamil said.

The target appeared to be Faqir Mohammad, a prominent Taliban leader, but he is believed to have escaped the hide-out by minutes, Jamil said. Most of the 22 killed were Afghans, he said.

Pakistan formally protests the missile strikes, saying they violate its sovereignty and raise sympathy for the Taliban, while the U.S. rarely discusses the attacks. However, analysts believe that the two sides have a secret deal allowing the strikes.

The U.S. has shown no sign of easing the drone-fired attacks even as Pakistan is waging its own fight in the tribal areas. Asked if the missile attacks are a distraction or a help, the army spokesman said Pakistan would prefer to go it alone.

“We do not want any assistance or interference from outside,” Abbas said.

He added that a mysterious explosion Wednesday in North Waziristan - initially described by intelligence officials as a suspected U.S. missile attack - had turned out to be a blast caused when explosives being loaded onto a vehicle accidentally detonated.

Also Saturday, a military helicopter crashed in the Bajur tribal region, killing three officials, the army said, adding that the crash was an accident, not caused by any militant attacks. Information for this article was contributed by Asif Shahzad, Ashraf Khan, Habib Khan, Riaz Khan, Zarar Khan and Hussain Afzal of The Associated Press; by Jane Perlez and Pir Zubair Shah of The New York Times; and by Haq Nawaz Khan and Karin Brulliard of The Washington Post.