Pakistan: Swat jihadists hiding, fleeing among civilians

May 11, 2009
Pakistan: Swat jihadists hiding, fleeing among civilians
When danger reared its ugly head, they bravely turned their tails and fled; the brave jihadists turned about, and gallantly, they chickened out... (with apologies to Monty Python). "Pakistan: Militants 'join exodus from Swat'," by Syed Saleem Shahzad for the Adnkronos International, May 11:

(AKI) - Many militants were joining hundreds of thousands of residents fleeing the troubled northwestern Swat valley as the military eased a curfew late on Monday, informed sources told Adnkronos International (AKI). It was the last chance for the local population to leave their homes and head for safer areas ahead of an expected escalation of military operations against the Taliban, the sources said.
“Most of the militants are on the run. Those left are heavily under siege by the security forces but they are hiding in the population and that’s why security forces relaxed the curfew hours from 6 pm to 10 pm," a senior security officer told AKI, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"So that people would evacuate the areas and shift their families to the safer places so that military would carry out its operations without the fear of any collateral damage,” the source added.
In Peshawar, the commissioner for the Afghan refugee camp Syed Jamaluddin Shah told the reporters that three new camps would be established in Noshera and Charsada in the surrounding North West Frontier Province region which would have the capacity to provide shelter to at least 4,000 displaced families.
The military says it killed 200 militants in and near the Swat valley over the weekend. The army has deployed up to 15,000 troops to route [sic] some 500 militants fighting for the imposition of Islamic law in the Swat valley and neighbouring districts....
If the Taliban is faring as poorly as Pakistan reports, can offers of a "truce" and "negotiations" be far behind? At that point, we'll see if they learned anything in Islamabad since the initial truce in 2006.