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Pak Army Tracks down Taliban Leadership as Victory Nears

Pakistan’s defence secretary has said that the month-long army offensive against Taliban militants in North-West Frontier Province is likely to come to an end within a few days, as defence forces tracked down the militant leadership.

According to an army announcement make late Saturday, government has regained its control over Swat valley’s main town Mingora. In addition, Syed Ali told a security forum in Singapore that three targeted districts of northwest are now nearly free of Taliban militants.
 
“Operations in Swat, Buner and adjoining areas have almost met complete success,” the secretary of defence said.

“Only five to ten percent job is remaining and hopefully within the next two to three days these pockets of resistance will be cleared.”

Though the army is still battling Taliban militants in some areas, the fall of Mingora was a critical milestone in an offensive launched after the Taliban thrust to within 100 kilometres (60 miles) of Islamabad.

The US, which strongly supported the army offensive, had warned that Taliban militants were a threat to the country’s very existence and identified Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan as central to its “war on terror”.

“We are trying to target the top leadership of militants and they are constantly being followed,” chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said as he announced the Mingora win.

Officials said that lower-ranked militant leaders had been killed but the top leaders, who have a network of hardcore militants around them, are hard to be tracked. They had slipped into rugged mountain terrain.

“They will be eliminated wherever we find them,” said one military official, who did not wish to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media, adding: “We believe that they are somewhere in the mountains.”

Pakistan has slapped a 600,000-dollar price on the head of firebrand Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah for masterminding the nearly two-year uprising in Swat valley to enforce sharia law.

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