Army enters last Taliban stronghold

Islamabad: The Pakistani army entered the last of three militant strongholds targeted by a major offensive in the northwest on Friday, as gunmen wounded a senior army officer and a soldier in the capital.

The operation in South Waziristan, the main Taliban and Al Qaida sanctuary in Pakistan, has sparked a wave of retaliatory attacks that have killed about 300 civilians and security force personnel in the past month.

The shooting in Islamabad was the third such attack in about two weeks.

The militants hope the attacks will weaken the army's resolve as it pushes deeper into the isolated, mountainous region near the Afghan border. But the army pressed ahead yesterday, entering Makeen, the hometown of former Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a suspected US missile strike in August.

Act of vengeance

Troops razed Mehsud's house, seen as an act of vengeance for the hundreds of people the Pakistani Taliban has killed in the country.

Police shot and killed two would-be suicide bombers in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, police official Sajid Ali said. The two men opened fire on police when their car was intercepted at a checkpoint in Balakot, a town in North West Frontier Province.

Authorities returned fire, killing the two men, and found two suicide vests and two bombs in the vehicle, Ali said. Two police personnel were wounded.

The Pakistani army has vowed to continue the South Waziristan offensive despite the increase in militant attacks. It says it is now fighting bloody street-to-street battles in each of the three main militant strongholds in the region — Makeen, Sararogha and Ladha.

The military says hundreds of insurgents have been killed in the South Waziristan operation — including 24 in just the last day — and hundreds more have been wounded.

A Taliban spokesman disputed the army's claims earlier this week, saying the group has not lost even a dozen fighters. The militants say they are intentionally drawing the army farther into the isolated region to trap them as winter approaches.

Details are impossible to confirm since South Waziristan has been sealed off to outsiders since the offensive began. Journalists have only been allowed in on carefully orchestrated government trips.

The Pakistani government has been eager to portray the militants as on their heels.

Broadcast

Pakistani intelligence officials on Thursday shared an intercepted speech by the current Pakistani Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, who warned his fighters they will go to hell if they flee the army offensive.

The authenticity of the speech, which was broadcast over a wireless radio network on Tuesday, could not be independently confirmed.