Mingora in ruin after Taliban expulsion

[LahoreEstate]

* Army spokesman says medical team flown in, restoration of electricity will take at least two weeks

MINGORA: Corpses lay exposed in Swat’s main town on Sunday, and residents rushed to mostly empty markets in search of food a day after the military claimed to have retaken the city from the Taliban.

Many buildings were damaged in Mingora, but not badly. Two decomposing bodies, apparently those of Taliban, lay unburied in a cemetery, while a third charred corpse lay close to a shopping mall. The smell of explosives hung in the air.

The military operation against the Taliban in Swat has earned praise by the West, as troops have regained large swaths of the region from an estimated 4,000 Taliban, but several places remain under Taliban control.

“We have been starving for many days. We have been cooking tree leaves to keep ourselves alive. Thank God it is over,” said Afzal Khan. “We need food, we need help. We want peace,” he added.

Most of Mingora’s around 375,000 residents fled before or during the offensive. The military briefly lifted a curfew on Sunday, allowing some of the 20,000 or so that remained to buy provisions in the few shops that were open.

Ali Rehman said he had not left his house for 25 days. “I never knew who was fighting and who was being killed,” he said, clutching two bags of flour. “I need help to keep my family alive because I do not have any source of income anymore,” he added.

Medical team: An emergency medical team had been flown in and would work to reopen the town’s hospital and treat civilians wounded in the fighting, military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said.

But it will be at least two weeks before power is back on, and displaced people are not yet being encouraged to return home, he added.

Authorities said they were distributing aid to people trapped in Mingora, and water and gas supplies were being restored.

Abbas said on Saturday that 1,217 Taliban have been killed in the Swat offensive and 79 arrested, and 81 soldiers have died – figures that cannot be independently verified.

Skirmishes: In South Waziristan, insurgents attacked an army convoy on Saturday night, sparking battles in various parts of the region, two intelligence officials said. They estimated that 50 Taliban and two soldiers were killed.

Early on Sunday, the Taliban fired more than a dozen missiles at an army camp in South Waziristan’s Jandola area. The military retaliated using artillery, and some troops moved into a Taliban-held village to force them out.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to talk to media.

The Taliban warned they would attack cities in retaliation for the Swat offensive. They claimed responsibility for suicide bombers detonating a vehicle loaded with explosives near the offices of the capital city police officer and the Inter-Services Intelligence in Lahore on Wednesday – killing at least 27 people and wounding 326, in addition to destroying a two-storey building of the Rescue 15 police service. A day later, three suicide bombings killed at least 14 people in Peshawar and DI Khan.

Condemning both days’ attacks, Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Kayani said Pakistan would not be terrorised, and that the army would succeed in its anti-Taliban efforts. He has on various occasions following the beginning of the military operation on May 7 expressed satisfaction over the military operation against the Taliban and vowed to flush them out to enable the displaced people to return to their homes as soon as possible. ap

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp...2009_pg1_9