December 13, 2007: Although
the Taliban uprising in the Swat valley has been declared crushed, there are
still a hundred or more Taliban gunmen unaccounted for. Two weeks of fighting
have left 330 Taliban dead and 160 arrested, along with about fifty soldiers
and civilians killed or wounded. The surviving Taliban have fled to the
mountains, and troops are going after them there. The army is preparing for a
year long operation to hunt down and arrest all the pro-Taliban people in the
valley. The army currently has about 20,000 troops in Swat, which has a
population of some 1.3 million. The
Taliban fire their rifles and RPGs without much effect, and are easy targets
for army helicopter gunships. The most effective weapons have been suicide car
bombers, but these kill mainly civilians.
Meanwhile, fighting continues
along the Afghan border, where the Taliban are most active. The Taliban are not
strong enough to even attempt open control of a town, but are able to ambush
army vehicle movements. These have cost the army over fifty casualties in the
past week.
It's Winter, and most of the
Taliban fighters are indoors, or staying close to home. Those who go out to
fight are at a major disadvantage, for the army is better prepared operate in
the Winter than are the Taliban.
An al Qaeda plot to kill
president Musharraf was broken up, and a large quantity of weapons seized. The
captured terrorists insisted the plot would go forward, because a large number
of al Qaeda members were involved.
In northeast India, a bomb
went off in a train, killing five people. A local tribal separatist group took
responsibility. While the government has destroyed or weakened most of these
rebel organization in the last decade, several survive. The rebels spend most
of their time raising money via various criminal methods. Extortion is one of
the most popular. Stuff along the lines of "pay us money so that we don't
kill you or blow up your business." The communist Maoist rebels in eastern
India are using this approach with increasing success. However, many large
businesses simply leave Maoist infested areas, or will not set up operations
there.
