PAKISTAN: Pakistan Says Return of Swat Refugees May Start Within a Week
Posted by warvictims on July 1, 2009
By Paul Tighe and Farhan Sharif
June 30 (Bloomberg) — Pakistan’s government said displaced civilians may start returning within a week to the Swat Valley where fighting between the army and Taliban militants created the biggest exodus since the country’s founding in 1947.
Electricity, gas and telephone services are restored in towns and villages devastated by the fighting, Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said in Islamabad yesterday, according to the state-run Associated Press of Pakistan.
The North West Frontier Province government will soon announce a timetable for a phased return of people displaced by the conflict, he said.
An estimated 2.5 million people fled the fighting in Swat, where the army is completing an offensive against the Taliban that began in April. Many displaced people said they won’t return until security is restored, the United Nations refugee agency said last week.
The operation to rebuild in Swat has been slowed because the armed forces want to ensure that civilians don’t become targets during military operations, Kaira said, according to APP. The military says more than 1,600 militants have been killed since the offensive began.
Displaced people want “improvements in security conditions” as well as essential services restored, William Spindler, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, said June 26.
While some people returned briefly to check on their homes, most stayed at transit camps, he said. An average of 1,800 displaced people each day are reaching the Jalozai camp in Nowshera district, which is being expanded because others in the region are full, the UNHCR said last week.
Accord Violated
The army began its offensive in Swat after the Taliban advanced to within 100 kilometers (62 miles) of the capital, Islamabad, violating a February accord to end fighting in return for the government placing the region under Islamic law.
The military has now turned its attention to Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas bordering Afghanistan and is targeting forces of Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan.
The operation in South Waziristan is targeting groups that “have taken up arms against the government,” Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, said yesterday, according to APP.
“This is a law enforcement operation and not to specifically target any area or tribe,” he said.
Mehsud formed his Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan movement from an alliance of about five pro-Taliban groups in December 2007, according to the U.S. Military Academy’s Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.
No Talks
Pakistan’s Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said two days ago there will be no talks with militants because the army is taking decisive action against them “in a guerrilla fight” in the tribal region and in the Swat Valley.
The U.S. is pressing Pakistan to tackle Taliban and al- Qaeda fighters operating in the region, and President Barack Obama has said an aid package to Pakistan worth $1.5 billion a year is conditional on the government cracking down on extremists.
The U.S. resumed drone surveillance flights over the tribal areas to provide information to Pakistani military commanders, the New York Times reported on its Web site, citing unidentified U.S. and Pakistani defense officials. The U.S. is also speeding up delivery of transport helicopters and other equipment for the Pakistani military.
A suspected U.S. drone fired missiles at a funeral procession for a militant commander last week, narrowly missing Mehsud, the Dawn newspaper reported at the time.
To contact the reporters on this story: Paul Tighe in Sydney at ptighe@bloomberg.net; Farhan Sharif in Karachi, Pakistan, at Fsharif2@bloomberg.net.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aU3NBpzlWL78
