Islamabad: Pakistani soldiers are clearing the last pockets of Taliban in the Swat valley, the military said on Monday, while security forces stepped up their assault on the Taliban headquarters in South Waziristan.
The Swat offensive was launched two months ago after Taliban fighters thrust towards the capital, raising alarm both at home and among allies who need nuclear-armed Pakistan's help to fight al-Qaeda and tackle Afghanistan's insurgency.
The campaign has won the praise of close ally the United States, and the top US commander for the region, General David Petraeus, met army chief General Ashfaq Kayani for talks on Sunday.
Military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told a briefing that soldiers were attacking the militants' last main stronghold in the former tourist valley of Swat though a couple of other small pockets of resistance remained.
The rest of the valley was clear, he said.
"Their command structure has been totally dismantled, their training centres, ammunition dumps destroyed and their headquarters ... have been destroyed," Abbas said.
But with no Taliban leaders in Swat reported killed, concern has been raised about their ability to strike back. A militant spokesman said on Sunday his leaders were alive and determined to fight on.
Nearly 2 million people have fled from fighting in Swat and other parts of the northwest since late last year and aid groups are struggling to raise funds to help them.
Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told the briefing the displaced, many languishing in tented camps in searing heat on the plain below Swat, could start going home in days.
"Unprovoked attack"
Meanwhile, security forces are closing in on the headquarters of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in his stronghold in the remote mountains of South Waziristan on the Afghan border.
The military fired artillery into one area on Monday, killing three militants, intelligence agency officials said, while aircraft attacked in another area.
The Taliban have responded to the offensive with a string of suicide bombs in towns and cities and attacks on the military across the north.
Militants firing rocket-propelled grenades ambushed a military convoy on Sunday in North Waziristan, another militant stronghold on the Afghan border, and 16 soldiers and 10 militants were killed, Abbas said.
It was the heaviest military toll in an attack in many months.
"It was an unprovoked attack and the military, the government, reserve the right to respond and action will be taken," Abbas said, adding Mehsud had claimed responsibility.
The government has said Mehsud, who carries a US reward of $5 million and a Pakistani reward of 50 million rupees ($615,000), must be defeated.
Security analysts say Mehsud has become increasingly close to al Qaeda and Abbas said he was involved in 90 percent of "terrorist activity" in the country.
Mehsud was accused of the December 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.
South Waziristan is also home to many foreign militants who took refuge there after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001. Al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding out somewhere along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border.
Mehsud is allied with Afghan Taliban fighters but they concentrate on attacking US-led forces in Afghanistan and are not the focus of the Pakistani offensive.
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