Government claimed on Sunday that it had saved Peshawar from militants as troops pushed forward on the second day of a major offensive against the militants. Soldiers backed by armoured vehicles retook control of the main town in the Khyber tribal district, on the outskirts of Peshawar, and also demolished a building belonging to a insurgent group, officials said.
The government, under pressure from Western allies over its peace talks with militants, launched the operation on Saturday to counter militant threatening Peshawar and raiding supply convoys for Nato and US troops in Afghanistan.
"The government has been successful in the operation in Khyber which was carried out to safeguard Peshawar," interior ministry chief Rehman Malik told a high-level meeting in Peshawar. He did not say when the offensive would end. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani separately denied the government was under pressure from Washington to launch the operation and said negotiations with militants would continue.
"This is our war and it is for our own survival," Gilani told reporters after a meeting of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in Lahore. "Nobody will be allowed to execute others publicly, kidnap minorities, set fire to girls' schools and barber shops in Pakistan," said Gilani.
He added: "We do not take any pressure and I have also explained my policy to US President (George W.) Bush that we believe in dialogue and want development, health, education and to eliminate terrorism from the country."
In Bara, the main town in Khyber, paramilitary troops patrolled with tanks and set-up sand-bag checkpoints after retaking control of the town, an AFP photographer saw. Soldiers in a village near Bara on Sunday blew up a building belonging to a Taliban-linked group, Ansar-ul-Islam, which has been accused of sending fighters into Afghanistan, a security official told AFP.
Troops were also advancing to other areas in the district including Ansar-ul-Islam's stronghold in the Tirah Valley, officials said. On Saturday troops demolished the house and headquarters of Mangal Bagh, the leader of the separate Lashkar-e-Islam (LI) group, which officials said was not linked to the Taliban.
Bagh's group has been accused of robbing vehicles on the Khyber Pass, the main supply route for international forces in Afghanistan, although officials said his men were not responsible for cross-border attacks. His followers had however threatened Peshawar, burning CD and barbers' shops deemed un-Islamic and carrying out several kidnappings, the officials said.
Bagh reportedly said he did not know why he was being targeted. "I have told LI volunteers to go home and not to resist any action," he was quoted as saying by a newspaper. Meanwhile, militants struck back in the Swat on Sunday, killing two soldiers in a bomb blast and shooting dead four people including a pro-government tribal elder, officials said.
Pakistan's government launched peace talks with rebels soon after defeating allies of US-backed President Pervez Musharraf in February elections. Pakistan's top Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud said on Saturday that he was halting two-month-old peace talks with the government because of operations against his men.