Taliban ousted from Khyber Pass

By Our Foreign Staff

Last Updated: 6:12PM BST 29/06/2008

Pakistani troops last night ousted Islamic militants from strongholds near the Khyber Pass, the main supply route for British troops in Afghanistan, a day after the government launched a major offensive.

The operation was the first by the new government of Pakistan since it defeated allies of President Pervez Musharraf in elections in February and then began controversial peace talks with the Taliban.

"It has been a successful operation. No collateral damage has been reported. The writ of the government has been established," said Rehman Malik, Pakistan's Interior Ministry chief.

Mr Malik said the operation had safeguarded the main northwestern city of Peshawar from Islamist vigilantes who have terrorised local residents and also raided trucks carrying supplies for Nato and US forces across the border.

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Black flags over Bara town signal militant support
BARA (June 30 2008): Black flags with a sword emblazoned across them were flying above many of the mud-walled homes in the town of Bara on Sunday in a show of support for a militant who government forces are out to get.

The flags were those of the Lashkar-i-Islami, or Army of Islam in north-west Pakistan's Khyber region, a wedge of tan-coloured mountains speckled with small trees sandwiched between the city of Peshawar and the Afghan border.

Security forces launched an offensive on Saturday to push members of the militant group, led by a commander called Mangal Bagh, from the approaches of Peshawar after Bagh's men began making forages into the city to impose their Taliban-style ways.

A former bus driver with little education, Bagh, who is in his mid-40s, appears to have won support the same way the Afghan Taliban did when they emerged in the early 1990s and sorted out war lords and criminals preying on the people.

"He brought peace and got rid of the criminals in our area. He's good for us," Mehboob said.

Bara was peaceful on Sunday with a surprisingly light security presence. Despite a curfew, some people were out in its main market although most stalls were shut.

There was no evidence of any militants and no one was seen carrying a gun in a region where most men own a rifle. Some soldiers drove around in double-cabin pick-up trucks and a few armoured personnel carriers patrolled the dusty streets but security forces made no effort to stop curious residents going out to see the ruins of Bagh's office and a four-room mud house, both near the market, that soldiers blew up on Saturday.

A senior government official said there had been no violence in the area since Saturday evening and a Reuters reporter heard no gun shots or explosions in Bara or along the lightly guarded road from Peshawar. Among those out on the streets was Bagh's older brother, the grey-bearded Soocha Gul, who is in his early 50s. "It's a shame, barbaric," an angry Gul said of the destruction of his brother's buildings.

"They came suddenly, asked us to vacate the house immediately and then blew it up. What crime did our women and children commit?" he asked. Bagh's militants are not allied with the main Pakistani Taliban group and they have not been known to head off to Afghanistan to fight Western troops there.

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