news details |
|
|
| Pak moves 6,000 troops from Indo-Pak border to fight Taliban | | | Agencies
Islamabad, April 30: Concerned by Taliban moving deeper into its territory, Pakistani authorities decided to move as many as 6,000 troops from Indo-Pak border to its Western border with Afghanistan, according to a news report.
Pakistan has been under immense pressure from US since its Swat peace deal with Taliban and then the Buner district also going to the extremists. US had lauded the redeployment of the troops by Pak but reiterated that it is not doing enough to eliminate the Taliban factor in the region.
Pakistan Army had launched ground offensive against Taliban in Dir district and later launched operation in the Buner district on Tuesday. On Thursday Pak Army claimed to have dragged the outfit out of the region.
It was Taliban’s advance into Buner, just 60 miles from Islamabad, which raised eyebrows of US which is concerned about the safety of nuclear weapons of the nation. With growing consensus among the Western countries as well as Pakistani politicians about the intentions of Taliban the Pak Army was under heavy pressure to take immediate actions to curb their movements.
Pushed on the backfoot Taliban had staged a show withdrawal from Buner last week, Pak Army General Abbas said. But he said the militants were trying to expand the space they controlled beyond the Swat Valley, which borders Dir and Buner.
At a news conference, he played three tapes of what were described as telephone intercepts of the main Taliban leader, Mullah Fazlullah, talking to one of his commanders about making a show withdrawal for the news media while telling the fighters to put away their weapons and lie low.
Justifying the redeployment Pakistan Army said that the 6,000 troops to be shifted had originally been on Pakistan’s western border but were sent to the Indian border in December, after the terrorists’ attack in Mumbai in which 163 people were killed the previous month. India had responded to the attack, which Indian and American officials concluded was planned in Pakistan and carried out by Pakistanis, by massing troops on the Pakistani border
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
|
