Pakistan fighter jets pounded Taliban sanctuaries Tuesday, as a minister defended intelligence agencies after a bloody week which saw 125 people killed in a wave of militant strikes.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik once again vowed to wipe out the Islamist extremist threat in Pakistan, with a fierce military operation into the Taliban's mountain sanctuaries believed to be imminent.
Fighter jets launched another round of bombing raids killing six suspected insurgents in South Waziristan, the semi-autonomous region near Afghanistan and a known stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda linked rebels, officials said.
The army claims to have already quashed militants in the one-time tourist paradise of Swat valley, but on Monday a suicide bombing struck in the neighbouring northwest district of Shangla, killing 45 people.
A weekend hostage drama at Pakistan's army headquarters meanwhile hit at the heart of one of the most powerful institutions in the nuclear-armed nation.
"Don't blame intelligence agencies, they have foiled several planned attacks, we foiled at least a hundred attacks before they were carried out," Malik told reporters.
Local media have reported that the threat to army headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi was known in advance by police, and have questioned why the siege which left 23 people dead was not thwarted.
On October 5, The News published extracts of a letter reportedly sent by the interior ministry to the Punjab authorities, warning that militants in army uniforms were planning to target the HQ -- exactly what happened days later.
As relayed by the newspaper, the letter said that such an attack was being planned by the Pakistani Taliban, working with banned Sunni Muslim extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi.
The alleged ringleader of the raid and the only survivor on the 10-member militant team, who goes by the alias Dr Usman, was a known insurgent with alleged links to a string of attacks.
"Dr Usman is an ex-military official. He is involved in various attacks including the Marriott bombing," Malik said, referring to the September 2008 truck bomb outside the hotel in Islamabad which killed at least 60 people.
Military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas has said the army HQ attack was planned in the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
War planes Tuesday targeted the region's Makeen, Ladha and Nawazkot towns, which had already been pummeled from the air on Sunday.
"At least six Taliban including a local commander were killed in the air attack," said a security official in South Waziristan who asked not to be named. Intelligence officials gave the same toll.
The strikes occur in areas under Taliban control, and the death tolls are impossible to verify independently.
The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan movement has claimed responsibility for the army raid, and threatened more attacks, delivering on a vow of vengeance after the death of its leader Baitullah Mehsud in a US missile strike in August.
There was a brief lull in violence as the Taliban leadership regrouped, but the comeback has been fierce.
Last Monday, a suicide bomber walked into the lobby of the Islamabad offices of the UN's World Food Programme, killing five people, while a massive suicide car bomb Friday killed 52 people in northwest Peshawar city.
The latest attack hit Alpuri town in Shangla on Monday, with 39 civilians and six soldiers killed when a boy aged about 13 or 14 flung himself at a military convoy passing through a crowded market.
Malik said the military was weighing up the best timing for an operation targeting the TTP leadership in the semi-autonomous tribal belt.
"We will defeat them and send them on the run," he told reporters.
Thousands of civilians have fled South Waziristan fearing an imminent offensive, while Pakistani fighter jets have been carrying out air raids in the region and blocking key roads in an attempt to choke off the rebels.
Copyright 2009  AFP South Asian Edition
