Islamic militants seize Pakistani fort in border zone, delivering new blow to Mu

[Guest guest]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2008/01/18/news/nation/12_00_011_17_08

..txt

Islamic militants seize Pakistani fort in border zone, delivering new

blow to Musharraf

By: ISHTIAQ MAHSUD and SLOBODAN LEKIC - Associated Press

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan -- In an embarrassing battlefield defeat

for Pakistan's army, Islamic extremists attacked and seized a small

fort near the Afghan border, leaving at least 22 soldiers dead or

missing.

The insurgents later abandoned the fort and melted away into the

hills, said military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. " There is no

occupation of the Sararogha Fort. Militants have gone from there, " he

said.

The militants did not gain significant ground, but they did further

erode confidence in the U.S.-allied government's ability to control

the frontier area where the Taliban and al-Qaida flourish.

Attacks on security forces are rising in the volatile tribal region,

and Pakistan is reeling from a series of suicide attacks that killed

former prime minister Benazir Bhutto and hundreds more, chipping away

at President Pervez Musharraf's prestige before Feb. 18 parliamentary

elections.

" The militants are now challenging the army openly. They have become

very bold and are consolidating their positions, " Talat Masood, a

retired general who is now a political analyst, said after Tuesday

night's attack on Sararogha Fort.

Militants also fired small arms and rockets at a military base in

Ladha, another town in South Waziristan, late Wednesday, drawing

retaliatory fire from troops, the military said. No casualties were

reported.

Separately, three rockets slammed near an air force base early

Thursday in Kamra, a town about 30 miles northwest of the capital

Islamabad, but no one was hurt.

The insurgents who seized the Sararogha Fort were said to be

followers of Baitullah Mehsud, an Islamic hard-liner who since

December has been sole leader of an umbrella group of Taliban

sympathizers and who is also thought to have links to al-Qaida.

Musharraf has blamed Mehsud's movement, Tehrik-e-Taliban, for 19

suicide attacks that killed more than 450 people over the last three

months. Mehsud, labeled enemy No. 1 by the government, also

masterminded the brazen capture of 213 Pakistani soldiers last August.

Fighters of the pro-Taliban groups he leads have terrorized

Pakistan's northwest, killing hundreds of soldiers, hunting down

politicians, beheading women and burning schools that teach girls

anything more than religion.

In the latest battle, insurgents launched a surprise attack on

Sararogha Fort in South Waziristan and chased off its small garrison

from the Frontier Constabulary, a paramilitary force formed of men

from the area.

" About 200 militants charged the fort from four sides, " Abbas

said. " They broke through the fort's wall with rockets. "

Seven of the 42 soldiers manning the fort were known dead, while 15

reached safety in Jandola, an army base about 10 miles south of the

British colonial-era fort. Twenty were initially listed as missing,

but five were later found. Abbas said the rest probably sought

shelter in nearby villages.

The military claimed the defenders killed 50 militants before being

overwhelmed. A spokesman for Tehrik-i-Taliban said that only two of

its fighters died and that 16 soldiers were killed and 24 others

captured, half of them wounded.

There was no way to verify casualty numbers. Both sides have long

accused each other of exaggerating such figures.

The Tehrik-i-Taliban spokesman, Maulvi Muhammad Umer, warned the

government to release Taliban prisoners and stop military operations

in the frontier region or face militant attacks across Pakistan.

" Attacks will continue not only in the tribal areas, but we will

target the government everywhere in the country, " he told The

Associated Press by telephone.

He said militants had destroyed the fort with explosives.

Sararogha Fort is one of four such posts in the Mehsud tribal region,

where Baitullah Mehsud is based and has thousands of armed supporters.

On Sunday, the military said its troops repelled a similar attack

last week on another fort, at Lhada, and killed 40 to 50 insurgents.

On Monday, militants ambushed an army convoy in the same area,

touching off a firefight that the military said killed 30 insurgents

and Tehrik-i-Taliban said resulted only in some of its fighters being

wounded.

Musharraf first deployed the army in Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal

regions along the frontier in late 2001 to chase down al-Qaida

militants fleeing the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Nearly 100,000 soldiers are now in the area, supported by heavy

artillery and Cobra helicopter gunships, but they have had little

success in stopping militants from infiltrating into Afghanistan or

in quelling Pakistan's own worsening Islamic insurgency.

Government tactics have vacillated between use of extreme force and

appeasement. Pro-Taliban forces now appear capable of launching the

kind of coordinated assaults inside Pakistan's border regions as they

do in the volatile south and east of Afghanistan.

A U.S. intelligence estimate last year said a Musharraf peace pact in

2006 with Taliban militants had allowed al-Qaida to regroup in

Pakistan's tribal belt, a possible hiding place of Osama bin Laden

and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.

In Florida, the head of the U.S. military's Central Command said the

rise in violence was pushing Pakistan to be more open to suggestions

that American troops train and advise Pakistani forces.

That is a touchy subject in predominantly Muslim Pakistan, where many

people are leery of Musharraf's alliance with Washington since the

Sept. 11 terror attacks, but Navy Adm. J. Fallon said he

believes Pakistani leaders are beginning to view the militants as a

dire threat.

" They see they've got real problems internally, " Fallon said.

Masood, the political analyst, said tribesmen along the frontier are

increasingly joining up with Taliban forces from across the border in

Afghanistan.

" Even if they don't support the Taliban per se, they are now siding

with them rather than the government because they think Musharraf and

the army are an extension of the Americans, " he said.

Washington considers Musharraf a key ally in the fight against

extremist groups. President Bush and other U.S. officials have

frequently praised Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup but

resigned from the army in December and is now ruling as a civilian

president.

After the fall of Sararogha Fort, opposition leaders were quick to

blame Musharraf for the deteriorating security situation.

" Musharraf is the root cause of all problems, " said Nawaz Sharif, a

leading opposition politician and the prime minister who was ousted

by Musharraf in 1999.

" If he goes, 95 percent of the problems of this country will be

solved. There will be no bomb blasts, there will be no missile

attacks, " Sharif told reporters in his hometown of Lahore.

-- Associated Press writers Ishtiaq Mahsud reported this story from

Dera Ismail Khan and Slobodan Lekic from Islamabad. AP writers Riaz

Khan in Peshawar and Kathy Gannon in Islamabad contributed to this

report.