Offensives kill 60 rebels

Offensives kill 60 rebels
Pakistan protests cross-border operations.

Published Tuesday, September 23, 2008

KHAR, Pakistan (AP) - Security forces backed by helicopter gunships and artillery have killed more than 60 insurgents in Pakistan’s northwest tribal regions in offensives aimed at denying al-Qaida and Taliban militants safe havens, officials said today.

The attacks come amid intense U.S. pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants blamed for attacks both at home and on coalition forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

A truck bombing over the weekend at the luxury Marriott hotel in the capital Islamabad that killed 53 people underscored the threat extremists pose to the nuclear-armed nation.

More than 50 of the alleged insurgents, along with one soldier, were killed in clashes since yesterday in the Kohat region bordering Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said.

In the nearby Bajur tribal region, security forces killed at least 10 militants during an ongoing offensive there, government official Iqbal Khattak said.

That operation, which began in early August, has won praise from U.S. officials worried about rising violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan. But it has also triggered retaliatory suicide bombings elsewhere in Pakistan.

Some officials have said the weekend bombing of the American hotel chain might have been a response to the Bajur operations, which the army says has killed more than 700 suspected militants.

Washington says the operation in Bajur - a rumored hiding place of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden - appears to have reduced violence across the border in Afghanistan.

Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas has said Bajur had turned into a "mega-sanctuary" for militants and the military was determined to flush them out.

However, a rash of U.S. cross-border operations in neighboring tribal regions, including missile strikes and a ground assault, underscore Washington’s concerns that Pakistan is either unwilling or incapable of rooting out extremists on its own.

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was expected to discuss the cross-border attacks with President George W. Bush today on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly in New York.

Pakistan has protested U.S. cross-border operations, calling them violations of its sovereignty. But its government has called for diplomatic measures to resolve the dispute.

Experts and officials say the Marriott truck bombing bore the hallmarks of al-Qaida but that the Taliban might still have assisted in its execution.

The U.S. Department of Defense identified one of two Americans killed in the Marriott blast as Maj. Rodolfo I. Rodriguez, 34, of El Paso, Texas.