al-Qaida

UPDATE:  Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has backtracked on his earlier comments.  Click here for the story.

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Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani says the military operation targeting Taliban militants in the South Wazirstan tribal region is over.

Pahari Sahib, Wikimedia Commons

Mr. Gilani told reporters that Pakistan’s military is now focusing on the Orakzai tribal region in an effort to chase the Pakistani Taliban leadership that is believed to have fled there from South Waziristan.  Once fully launched, the operation in Orakzai will be the third major offensive against the Pakistani Taliban this year.

Here is a breakdown of the situation:

Part 1 –  How has Pakistan’s offensive against the Taliban evolved in 2009?

Part 2 — How successful has the military been?

Part 3 — How have the militants responded?

Part 4 — How is the public responding to the offensive?

U.S. officials have commended the Pakistani government for launching the South Waziristan operation.  But as the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan strengthens, Washington continues to urge Islamabad to expand its operations to take on the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida agents believed to be based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal region.

The former security chief of the tribal regions, retired Brigadier-General Mahmood Shah, tells me that the United States’ priorities are very different than Pakistan’s.  The United States wants Pakistan to focus on militants that are part of a global network of terrorists.  But Shah says Pakistan wants to focus on its immediate threat: militants it believes have launched a series of high-profile attacks across the country.  Since the beginning of October, these attacks have killed more than 500 people.

If you click the map above, you can see that North Waziristan is between South Waziristan and the Orakzai tribal regions.  I told Shah it appears the militants escaped from South Waziristan through its northern neighbor — where the United States wants Pakistan to focus its forces.

Shah says the militants Pakistan is targeting have always had a presence in Orakzai.  He says the military chose to attack the Pakistani Taliban’s base in South Waziristan before broadening its campaign.  He says that he believes his country will be in a better position to help the United States and its allies once it takes care of its domestic insurgency.

Click here for the story.