PAKISTANI TALIBAN SUFFERS HEAVY LOSES
The Pakistani army spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas, in a press conference in Islamabad, on Wednesday 07/08/2009, claimed that Maulana Fazlullah, the commander of Tehrik-e-Taleban in NWFP Swat District, has been wounded during an offensive against the group. Pakistan has offered a $615,000 reward for information leading to Fazlullah’s death or capture, and rumors have circulated for weeks that he is critically injured or close to capture (see – Swat-Crisis).
In yet another development in Pakistan, on Wednesday, over 50 other suspected militants were killed in FATA, South Waziristan, the stronghold of Baitullah Mehsud, in two UAV drone missile attacks.
In the first attack, suspected US drones attacked a Taliban forest camp in Karwan Manza area, some 10km (six miles) south-east of Ladha. in South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, killing at least 10 militants.
Hours later, officials said about 40 militants died when five missiles hit a vehicle convoy on the main road between Ladha and another town, Sararogha, in the same region (see also – Sararogha Attack).
It has been one of the Taliban’s deadliest days since the drone campaign began in 08/2008. Over 400 people were killed in the campaign but there are no reliable numbers how many of them were, indeed, Islamic militants.
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