Pakistani Army Captures Taliban Stronghold - NYTimes.com

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By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — After a week of fighting Taliban and Qaeda militants in the mountains of South Waziristan, the Pakistani Army said Saturday that it had captured a town important for both its symbolic and strategic value.

The town, Kotkai, most of whose 5,000 residents had already fled, is the home of the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, and one of the most feared Taliban commanders, Qari Hussain. Mr. Hussain is believed to be the organizer and trainer of the group’s suicide bombing squads.

The army has been struggling in the treacherous terrain in South Waziristan, long a militant sanctuary. Military officials said Saturday that Kotkai had been taken only after “intense fighting.” Four days ago, the militants repulsed the first army attempt to capture the town and killed nine soldiers, according to a military intelligence officer.

It was the first notable sign of progress in what military analysts say will be an arduous slog for the army against a resilient enemy. And it came as Pakistan has been enduring a withering series of terrorist attacks over the past three weeks.

At a military briefing Saturday, the information minister, Qamar Zaman Kaira, acknowledged that the attacks, which have focused on police and government sites and have killed about 200 people, had taken a serious toll. But he insisted that “the nation will not be terrorized.”

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

For example, 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 Uzbek fighters, some of the most battle-hardened around, a former resident of the area 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.”

Time may also be working against the army. In past years, many of the Taliban militants fighting American and NATO forces in Afghanistan have come to Waziristan as winter approached to train and prepare for the next year’s fighting.

Although there is evidence that the seasonal fighting in Afghanistan has become a more year-round affair, the concern is that any Taliban fighters who do cross the border into Pakistan could be used against the army in South Waziristan. One militant organizer in the region, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the migration had already started, potentially swelling the number of active militants in the region well beyond the present estimates of 7,000 to 10,000.

Reinforcements for the militants were also coming from other parts of the Pakistani tribal region, the militant organizer said.

Still, Pakistani soldiers are receiving more support than they did in past campaigns, including better winter gear and air support from fighter jets, the former Waziristan official said.

American officials have praised the Waziristan offensive, after months of pressure on Pakistani officials to begin. But at the military briefing, the army spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, said that the fight was a purely a Pakistani enterprise, unaided by the United States or anyone else.

There have been no reported missile attacks by American drones in South or North Waziristan against Qaeda targets since the beginning of the Pakistani Army offensive a week ago. Both South and North Waziristan have been the focus of the more than 40 drone attacks in the region this year.

Pakistan had asked the United States to refrain from drone attacks while the army operation was under way in South Waziristan, a senior Pakistani government official said Saturday.

Families continued to flee South Waziristan, and Mr. Kaira said the government was granting the refugees a month’s supply of food and a monthly stipend worth about $50.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it still had no access to North or South Waziristan to care for civilians. “We are concerned by the lack of access granted to humanitarian organizations like the I.C.R.C. whose role it is to protect and assist victims of fighting,” the committee said in a statement.

Elsewhere, in the tribal belt in Bajaur, a missile fired from a drone killed 22 people in the town of Damadola on Saturday, two Pakistani officials said.

The strike appeared to be aimed at a senior Pakistani Taliban leader, Faqir Mohammad, said the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. They said two relatives of Mr. Mohammad were killed.

Jane Perlez reported from Islamabad, and Pir Zubair Shah from Peshawar, Pakistan.