Pakistani troops take town

Pakistani troops took the main town in strategically important Buner Valley yesterday after dropping by helicopter behind Taliban lines, killing more than 50 militants in two days, the military said.

A US drone meanwhile fired a missile into another region, the major al Qaeda sanctuary of South Waziristan, killing six militants in the latest such attack by US forces in Pakistan's border areas with Afghanistan.

The Taliban's advance earlier this month into Buner, just 100 km northwest of the capital had sent shivers through Pakistan and heightened fears in the US that the nuclear-armed Muslim state was becoming more unstable.

"We assure the nation that armed forces have the capability to ward off any kind of threat," military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told a news conference in Rawalpindi, the garrison town close to the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan had used jet fighters at the start of the operation on Tuesday then deployed helicopter gunships which inflicted more than 50 casualties, Mr Abbas said. One soldier was killed.

The Islamabad government's demonstration of military resolve will probably reassure US President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai when they meet Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari in Washington on May 6-7 to discuss strategy.

Mr Obama, speaking in Missouri, said Al Qaeda and the Taliban were the "single most direct threat" to US national security.

"In Afghanistan and neighbouring Pakistan we do have real problems with the Taliban and al Qaeda," Mr Obama said at a town hall meeting.

The strike by the pilotless US drone which killed six targeted a vehicle. Two of the militants were foreigners, an intelligence official said from the region.

Unlike South Waziristan, Buner is not on the Afghan border but militants' growing clout deep into Pakistan's northwest has raised alarm bells across Pakistan and the US.

Pakistani stocks lost more than two per cent due to worries over mounting insecurity.

Taliban fighters had held the entrances to the valley, but they risked being caught between security forces at their front and rear after the successful airdrop.

"The airborne forces have linked up to police and Frontier Constabulary in Daggar," the military spokesman said earlier. "A link up with ground forces is in progress."

Residents saw troops descend from helicopters outside Daggar, the main town in Buner.

The military spokesman said the soldiers had freed 18 of some 70 police and militiamen abducted by militants on Tuesday.