Pakistan Targets Taliban and Al-Qaeda in Waziristan Assault

Pakistan's army is preparing to launch an assault on the Taliban and al-Qaeda stronghold of South Waziristan as the military fights a rearguard political action against the civilian government over a contentious $7.5 billion U.S. aid package.

The Waziristan operation is expected to target the Taliban network of Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last August, as well as thousands of Uzbek fighters who have been sheltering in the tribal belt since 2001.

The military said it could be Pakistan's most important battle since clashes with India in the mountains of Kashmir a decade ago. "It will be the toughest of fighting," said one senior official.

But the operation comes against a background of civil-military tension over a proposed American aid package that imposes strict conditions on the army. In an unusually strong statement Wednesday, Pakistan's military leadership expressed "serious concern" over the Kerry-Lugar bill, which triples non-military assistance to $1.5 billion a year over five years.

The military spokesman, Athar Abbas, was not available for comment after the meeting of generals, but earlier he said troops attacking Waziristan expect to encounter "stiff resistance". Abbas did not give a start date for the operation but officials in districts adjoining Waziristan reported heavy troop movements and a flood of villagers abandoning their homes. Wednesday security forces imposed a curfew and detained suspected Taliban sympathizers in Tank, a town at the gateway of the tribal belt.

The army is expected to encircle Mehsud's mountain lair in South Waziristan. On Monday a suicide bomber disguised as a soldier killed five people inside a United Nations office in Islamabad. Mehsud's TTP claimed responsibility.

A day earlier, Mehsud's successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, held a press conference for a small number of local journalists, dispelling U.S. reports of his death and attempting to quell reports of disarray in the Taliban ranks.

An assault on Waziristan has been looming since the army's successful operation in Swat this summer. The military hope to bolster its drive by exploiting divisions between tribal groups. In neighboring Lakki Markwat, community leaders said a tribal militia was being raised to seal off the Mehsud territory.

The extent of the military's ambition in Waziristan remains unclear. The army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, told Pakistani journalists that dislodging Uzbek fighters loyal to Osama bin Laden, estimated at between 2,000 and 5,000 men, was at the heart of his strategy. "He said that if we can take the Uzbeks out of Waziristan then the dynamic of politics in South Waziristan will change," said Imtiaz Gul, the author of The al-Qaeda connection: The Taliban and Terror in Pakistan's Tribal Areas.

Analysts and tribal elders said they expected the assault would take at least six months, including a pause of several months during the bitter winter months.

The new national sense of resolve against the Taliban has been diluted by the acrimonious national debate over the U.S. aid package. The Kerry-Lugar bill, which recently passed through Congress, triples non-military aid to $1.5 billion per year over the next five years‘ the largest American assistance package to a civilian government in Pakistan.

But the bill, which has not yet been signed by President Obama, requires Pakistan to co-operate in dismantling illegal nuclear proliferation networks, forbids the army from subverting the judicial process, and includes provisions to stop civilian aid being diverted to the military.

The army's criticism of the bill comes amid a media-fueled backlash against plans to expand the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, and conspiracy theories that the expansion is part of a plot to seize the country's nuclear weapons.