Pakistan intensifies offensive against militants in northwest

Pakistan intensified its military operation to regain control of the country’s northwest from Taliban militants, with fighting focused on the largest city in the Swat Valley on Sunday. Troops were engaged in street battles with militants in Mingora, the gateway into the valley

Share

Refugee Crisis Clouds Pakistan’s Anti-Taliban War

It is in refugee camps like Chotha Lahore, rather than on the battlefields of the Swat Valley, that the outcome of Pakistan’s decisive showdown with the Taliban may be decided. The camp, near the town of Swabi, is sheltering some of the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the government offensive to drive the militants out of the Swat Valley and its surrounds. “The purpose [of the campaign] is to cleanse the areas of these miscreants and militants,” Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told TIME

Share

Pakistani hospitals overwhelmed by wounded

Pakistan’s offensive against Taliban militants in the country’s northwest is overwhelming medical resources in the Swat Valley, hospital officials said Friday. Staff members from Mardan Medical Center have treated 2,124 patients from clashes between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters in more than two weeks of fighting, according to Dr. Arshad Ahmed

Share

Taliban swaps kidnapped official for militants

Taliban militants released a kidnapped Pakistani official in exchange for two of their men in the troubled Swat Valley, government officials said Monday. Kushal Khan was on his way to take up his new post as the district coordination officer Sunday when unknown gunmen kidnapped him and six members of his security detail near Mingora, the valley’s main city.

Share