Pakistan Army Prepares to Attack Taliban Militants in Waziristan

Posted by Christine Welter Jun 17, 2009

Pakistan's army and paramilitary forces have deployed troops in the tribal area between the northern Bannu district and South Waziristan. They are preparing to launch an operation against militant commander Baitullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban. (BBC News)

Baitullah Mehsud belongs to the Mehsud tribe and commands Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP). He is Pakistan's most wanted militant with a five-million-dollar reward posted by the United States. His network of fighters and suicide bombers executed a string of deadly attacks in Pakistan.

Mehsud has his stronghold in South Waziristan and is said to command about 20,000 heavily armed Taliban militants. South Waziristan is regarded as a safe haven for al-Qaeda. It is a buffer zone between Afghanistan and Pakistan and the most untamed of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Provinces.

I first learned about Waziristan reading Greg Mortenson's Three Cups of Tea. Mortenson, the Montana man who builds schools for girls in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, was kidnapped by a tribal group associated with the Taliban in Waziristan in 1996. They held him in a warehouse for eight days, but then let him go. Mortenson is fascinated by the Wazir people and he describes them well. They are underdogs, and they have resisted the great world powers for centuries in an environment of vegetationless desert valleys and brown mountains. When Mortenson first entered Waziristan he felt "he had entered a medieval society of warring city states." (Three Cups of Tea, p.159)

Read about the fighting in Pakistan:

The Long War Journal (analysis of the Waziristan operation)

Tide turns against Taliban (BBC news)