Posted on 03/02/2006 11:24:49 PM PST by HAL9000
MIRAMSHAH, March 2: Tension gripped the North Waziristan agency on Thursday as Taliban took over government buildings, occupied the area’s telephone exchange and patrolled the streets of the tribal agency’s regional headquarters.Eyewitnesses and government officials said that after Wednesday’s heavy gunbattle between security forces and Taliban remnants, a large number of families started moving to other places in the troubled agency.
Sources said that the Taliban elements had taken over the telephone exchange in Miramshah.
The exchange had already been shut down by the military to disrupt communication between militants.
The Taliban also took over the irrigation department building, snatched government vehicles and occupied rooftops of buildings near the main market.
Political authorities pulled out paramilitary troops from the main bazaar as the Taliban took positions at key points in the town. Paramilitary forces restricted their movement to bases and government buildings.
Mirali and other parts of the tribal region, were also tense, although calm, the sources said.
Scared shopkeepers in Miramshah pulled shutters as hundreds of militants entered the town on trucks fitted with on machine-guns at noon, shouting “God is Great” and “Death to America and its friends”. Offices remained closed and traffic was very thin in the area.
“There is chaos. The administration has left the area at the mercy of the Taliban,” said a security official.
Governor NWFP Khalilur Rehman told Dawn in the evening in Peshawar his administration in Miramshah had been able to bring the situation under control by getting a local jirga involved.
“The jirga went to those people and asked them to come down. They have since abandoned their positions and have walked away. This was the right approach. For the first time a political process was used to defuse the situation and it worked,” the governor said.
But a government official said that a few of the Taliban continued to guard the telephone exchange while others were waiting it out at the Gulshan-i-Uloom Madressah just across the road.
Asked who was in control of Miramshah, the official said: “No-one really. The Taliban have (apparently) left, yet they are still there, and the government is there but is not in total control.”
On Wednesday night, suspected militants fired rockets on troops who responded with artillery fire.
It may be mentioned that security forces hit a suspected compound in Dandy Sidgai area near Afghan border on Wednesday, killing more than 40 people and wounding 30 others, which triggered clashes in Miramshah.
Independent sources contradicted government’s claims that most of the dead were foreigners and said that residential compounds had been targeted from helicopter gunships.
A doctor said that more than 15 wounded, a number of women among them, were treated for multiple injuries in the agency headquarters hospital in Miramshah and all of them were locals.
“We did not treat a single foreigner,” said the doctor.
Official sources said that residents of Dandy Sidgai had found a gun and a door of a military helicopter which might have been hit by militants’ fire.
This is an opportunity for our buddy Mushareff to show how he is fighting the war on terror.
Or not.
Now that we know where you lying, thieving sons of bitches are it's easier to blow you off the map.
...I'm curious, think they took over Democrat party headquarters in this town? I mean, the Dems always cater to the illegal immigrant vote...
ping
A map would be good here.
On Google Earth, a search for coordinates 32°45'16.55"N, 69°41'22.37"E should zoom to the general area.
Pakistan has some of the most incredible terrain for Google Earth flyovers.
Send in the drones, there've got to be drones.
Sounds like Osama decided that he'd like to hide out in a building for a change.
Oh, I might be able to dig a little something up for you!
| 8 | “MIRAMSHAH, March 2: Tension gripped the North Waziristan agency...” |
Mirah Shah: is located in the lower-central portion of the map below. For reference, note the Afghan cities of Kabul and Jalalabad, the Safed Koh mountains (home of the so-called Tora Bora cave complex) and the Paki city of Peshawar in the upper portions of the map. The entire Pakistani region shown along the Afghan border is known as the "Federally Administered Tribal Area" (FATA) and the specific agency you're looking at here is the North Waziristan. The whole area has been a hotbed of action with the Taliban and al-Qa'ida since day-one.
| multimap.com | | | The above map came from MultiMap.com. Click the logo on the left to visit the best site on the internet for accurate and detailed maps of the entire world. |
To orient yourself regionally, find Kabul and Jalalabad on the map of Afghanistan, below.
It is but it isn't; it was but it wasn't. Just a bit of a disagreement between "paramilitary" forces (whoever they are) and terrorist outlaws, actually, no big whoop -- Pakistan really has a grip on this region, really.
You now both know that Zawahiri in his last audio tape admits during that Wana campaign we almost captured him.
There are no Taliban in Pakistan....none they are all in Afghanistan.
admits = claims
:-)
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