New offensive against militants displaces thousands in northwest Pakistan

Pakistani security forces have launched a much-awaited "targeted operation” against militants in a restive northwestern district bordering Afghanistan, displacing thousands of residents who have fled to safer areas, officials said on Tuesday.

There was no formal government announcement about the launch of the offensive in Bajaur, a former stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, but a government administrator, Saeed Ullah, said that it was not a large-scale operation and only insurgent hideouts were being hit to avoid any civilian casualties.

Ullah estimated that about 20,000 families, or more than 50,000 people, have left their homes in recent days over fears about the operation.

Residents reported that security forces, backed by helicopters, struck militant hideouts in the mountainous areas along the Afghan border.

Volunteers offer water to Internally Displaced People at a highway near Khar, the main town of Bajaur on Tuesday. AP

Pakistan carried out a major operation in Bajaur against Pakistani and foreign militants in 2009, displacing hundreds of thousands of people.

Ullah said many of the newly displaced people are sheltering in government buildings and schools, where authorities are providing food and other essentials.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police chief Zulfiqar Hameed said officials are still collecting data on those displaced, and that the targeted operation is ongoing.

Pakistani Taliban, known as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, are a separate group but a close ally of the Afghan Taliban, who seized power in neighboring Afghanistan in August, 2021, as US and NATO troops were in the final stages of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war.

Many TTP leaders and fighters have found sanctuary in Afghanistan and have even been living there openly since the Taliban takeover, which also emboldened the Pakistani Taliban.

Associated Press