Pakistan Eases Curfew in Swat

[Refugees from the Swat Valley crowding on top of trucks and buses as they passed through a check point in northwest Pakistan on Friday.]

 

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The military relaxed its curfew Friday in the contested districts of Swat, Buner and Lower Dir to allow residents stranded by government operations against the Taliban to flee to refugee camps in adjacent districts.

The curfew was relaxed in Swat from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. in Swat and Malakand, according to a military spokesperson.

Private television channels broadcast images of locals walking on foot on tree-lined roads amid massive traffic jams.

Tasnim Qureshi, the minister of state for interior affairs, was quoted by local news media as saying that the military operation will be completed within a month. Mr. Qureshi criticized opposition politicians who have called for halting the campaign.

“These are the same people who were warning Islamabad that the insurgents were only few miles away from the capital — behind the Margalla hills. These people are now criticizing the operation for ‘mere face saving,’” Mr. Qureshi told reporters outside the Parliament in Islamabad.

The Pakistani Army continued to pound militant positions in Swat. Artillery targeted militants hiding in the thick forests and terraced mountain side of the valley.

Troops also continued a search-and-destroy operation in the town of Piochar, the stronghold of Maulana Fazlullah, one of the principal Taliban warlords who are challenging the government’s authority.

Earlier this week, the military said the number of civilians fleeing the fighting reached 1.3 million.

The exodus, if it proves to be as large as the government says, would be one of the largest migrations of civilians in the region since the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947, when as many as 14 million people left their homes for one of the newly independent countries.

Pakistan intensified its military campaign to reclaim Swat and neighboring districts last week only under intense pressure from Washington, and after enduring months of a regional power struggle with the Taliban.

The Pakistani Army has estimated that a force of about 4,000 militants took advantage of a peace agreement in northwestern Pakistan in February to seize control of much of Swat.

 

By SALMAN MASOOD (IHT.com)