HEADLINES:
R/€ Militants vow to take guerrilla fight to army
November 18, 2009 Edition 4
SARAROGHA, Pakistan: A school the army says churned out suicide bombers now lies in ruins. Soldiers patrol towns once ruled by militants who gave refuge to al-Qaeda. Left behind are terror manuals, extremist propaganda and boxes of ammunition and explosives.
Pakistan's latest offensive near the Afghan border has uprooted Taliban militants from long-held sanctuaries.
But questions remain over whether the insurgents have slipped away into the mountains of South Waziristan or beyond to fight another day.
Yesterday, reporters were shown Ladha and Sararogha towns, both militant hubs before the offensive started last month.
Commanders said Pakistani troops had retaken most population centres, roads and strategic high ground in the region, but insurgents remained in parts of the countryside.
"The terrorists declared this region would be the graveyard of the Pakistani army, but we proved them otherwise," said Major-General Athar Abbas.
As well as being the stronghold of the Taliban, South Waziristan has long been a refuge for al-Qaeda leaders who fled there after the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. It's considered a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden.
The current offensive was launched after an onslaught of terrorist attacks around the country. More than 200 000 people have fled and now live outside the region.
In Sararogha, the army took reporters to a run-down school it said the militants had used as a base. One room functioned as a courthouse and documents were strewn around the floor.
One dated March 25 detailed a property dispute and promised a "decision would be acceptable to both the parties" once Taliban officials had studied the evidence. Since 2001, the Taliban have taken control of parts of the border area by offering better governance in a region where state officials were often lazy and corrupt.
Brigadier Mohammed Shafiq, in charge of the Sararogha operation, said 30 militants and seven soldiers had been killed in this town. The insurgents left behind more than 60 booby traps and 20 suicide jackets.
The army has said the militants had fought back fiercely in places. But one senior officer said resistance had been less than expected in Sararogha and many militants had fled to other parts of the region where they intended to "suck the army" into a guerrilla war.
Last week, Qari Husain, a militant commander who has boasted of training suicide bombers, said they were preparing for a guerrilla campaign. "We will keep striking back against the army frequently and in this way we will inflict maximum damage."
In Ladha, closer to the Afghan border, a boarding school allegedly run by Husain was in ruins. Soldiers laid out hundreds of rounds of ammunition, boxes of grenades, dozens of rifles and anti-aircraft guns and a large cache of bomb-making components and chemicals.
Also on display was a large haul of militant propaganda, training materials and bomb-making instructions in English, Urdu and Arabic, Pakistani passports and dozens of photos of Taliban fighters posing with assault rifle and rocket launchers.
Among the books was a 1985 US Department of Army field manual; a Scout leaders' guide; the Oxford Dictionary of Chemistry; and the science fiction comedy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, by Douglas Adams. - Sapa-AP
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