Rawalpindi, PAKISTAN (Al Arabiya, Agencies)
Pakistan's military spokesman said Monday that troops had taken full control of Kanigurram, one of the biggest towns in South Waziristan and formerly a key Taliban operational center as 33 people were killed in a large blast in Rawalpindi.
"Kanigurram area has been completely cleared of terrorists," Major General Athar Abbas told a news conference in Islamabad.
Earlier in thr day a suicide bomber targeted soldiers queuing for their salaries outside a Pakistan bank and hotel, Al Arabiya news channel reported, adding at least six soldiers were among the dead and 60 people wounded.
The United Nations earlier pulled expatriate staff from the northwest citing security reasons.
Television stations showed pictures of ambulances and police vehicles racing through the streets, sirens blaring.
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Bounties for Taliban leaders " The operation so far has been very successful. The resistance that we were expecting initially did not come with the same swiftness we were expecting " Pakistani Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi The blast comes as the army is involved in a massive offensive against Taliban militants in South Waziristan.
There have been several retaliatory attacks since the offensive began last month, including a deadly car bomb blast in the city of Peshawar on Wednesday that killed over 100 people.
Pakistan earlier on Monday offered rewards worth $5 million for information leading to the capture, dead or alive, of Tehreek-e-Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud and 18 other lieutenants as Pakistan's foreign minister said the offensive in tribal South Waziristan should finish sooner than originally expected.
The rewards were offered in a black and white government advertisement on the front page of The News daily and flashed on Pakistani television channels overnight.
"Anyone who captures these people dead or alive or provides concrete information, the government will award them a cash reward," it said.
"The banned Tehreek-e-Taliban (TTP) terrorists are daily involved in deadly activities and because of their activities innocent Muslims are going to the valley of death," it added. |
Television grab shows Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud (File) The largest rewards, of 50 million Pakistan rupees ( & 00,240), were offered for TTP chief Hakimullah Mehsud, senior leader Wali ur-Rehman Mehsud and Qari Hussain Mehsud, once described as a master trainer of suicide bombers.
The rewards were offered less than a week after at least 118 people were killed last Wednesday when a massive car bomb flattened a market street in the northwest city of Peshawar in one of Pakistan's deadliest ever attacks. |
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Major offensive About 2.3 million people were forced from their homes by fighting in northwest Pakistan Pakistan ground troops, backed by jet fighters and helicopter gunships, are pressing a major offensive against TTP strongholds into a third week in which they have massed outside Taliban bastions and fought in streets.
The United States has endorsed the offensive in the lawless tribal belt on the Afghan border, where U.S. officials say al-Qaeda and its allies are plotting terror attacks on the West.
Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi insisted things were going well in the offensive in South Waziristan, one of the semiautonomous tribal regions where the Taliban has grown in power in recent years.
"The operation so far has been very successful. The resistance that we were expecting initially did not come with the same swiftness we were expecting," the foreign minister told reporters in Kuala Lumpur, where he was attending a meeting of Muslim countries.
A total of nine militants have been killed in South Waziristan over the past 24 hours, according to an army statement. Officials said seven of those were killed Sunday. Two soldiers have also been killed.
While Pakistan aided the rise of the Afghan Taliban in the 1990s, the growth of a militant Taliban network on its own soil has increasingly destabilized the country. |
