Pakistani Army launches operation in Hangu; Taliban issue ultimatum

The Pakistani Army has launched a military operation against the Taliban in the settled district of Hangu in the Northwest Frontier Province.

The military took over security in Hangu from the Frontier Corps on July 16 after imposing a curfew and warning the residents to leave the area and not to shelter the Taliban. “People who fail to move to relief camps will be considered to be anti-government,” a pamphlet distributed by the district administration warned.

The Army moved more than 1,500 infantry into the region. The force is backed by Cobra attack helicopters and artillery. The target of the operation are more than 4,000 Taliban, “along with Uzbeks and Taliban from Waziristan” operating in the Zargari and Shinawari regions in Hangu. Troops have blocked the Kohat-Parachinar road to limits Taliban movement in the district, and have “secured the Naryab dam where militants were deeply entrenched and putting up stiff resistance for five days.” The military reported the Taliban withdrew from Zargari and Shinawari, and the fighting has stopped.

There are no reports of Army or Taliban casualties. Five suspected Taliban were reported captured, but were later released. Civilians appear to have taken the brunt of the casualties, with 13 reported killed and homes leveled by artillery fire.

The Taliban have responded by issuing an ultimatum to the provincial government, warning it would attack if the operations against Taliabn forces did not cease and the government did not live up to the terms of the peace agreements signed throughout the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province. “[The Northwest Frontier Province] government will itself be responsible for the damage,” Mullah Omar, the spokesman for Baitullah's Pakistani Taliban movement told Geo TV. “{The Awami National Party] government made peace pacts but failed to fulfill its promises,”

The operation in Hangu began after a week of unrelenting attacks by Taliban forces in the region. On July 8, a police force detained seven Taliban fighters after a clash in Hangu. Security forces found weapons and explosives as well as “poisonous injections.” Rafiuddin, a senior Taliban leader and a deputy of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, was captured during the raid. Rafiuddin's group is based out of South Waziristan, which borders Hangu to the south.

The Taliban then launched a siege on the police station where Rafiuddin and the other fighters were held. A force comprised of 400 Taliban fighters surrounded the police station, but dispersed after a Pakistani Army battalion was dispatched to lift the siege.

On July 15, an estimated 250 Taliban surrounded a fort in the Shinawarai region and ordered the paramilitary troops to leave. The Frontier Corps paramilitary toops abandoned the fort, and it subsequently looted and destroyed by the Taliban. The Taliban are said to have captured 29 members of the Pakistani security forces during the past week, and threatened to kill them if extremists in custody were not released.

The security situation in northwestern Pakistan has rapidly deteriorated since the government initiated its latest round of peace accords with the Taliban and allied extremists in the tribal areas and settled districts in the Northwest Frontier Province. Peace agreements have been signed with the Taliban in North Waziristan, Swat, Dir, Bajaur, Malakand, Mohmand, and Khyber. Negotiations are under way in South Waziristan, Kohat, and Mardan. The Taliban have violated the terms of these agreements in every region where accords have been signed.

The Taliban, al Qaeda, and allied terrorist groups have established more than 100 terror camps in the tribal areas and the Northwest Frontier Province, US intelligence officials have told The Long War Journal.