Yousuf Raza Gilani's suggestion of an operation in Orakzai tribal region, where it recently launched airstrikes, is another sign that Islamabad did not deal the death blow it had intended against the Pakistani Taliban by taking them on in their main base.
It also illustrates the intractable nature of the extremist challenge facing this nuclear-armed nation: Even as troops flood one militant stronghold, the insurgents can simply regroup in another stretch of the rugged, barely governed tribal districts.
The U.S. has long pushed Pakistan to retake spots along the border that have become safe havens for militants, a pressure likely to intensify now that 30,000 additional U.S. troops are heading to Afghanistan to take on a resurgent Afghan Taliban.
To Washington's chagrin, Islamabad has focused on groups such as the Pakistani Taliban, which threaten its citizens, rather than militants who have gone after U.S. and NATO forces across the border. Gilani did not indicate a shift in that strategy Saturday.
"The operation in South Waziristan is over. Now there are talks about Orakzai," the prime minister told reporters in televised remarks from the eastern city of Lahore. He did not give a timeframe or any other details.
Pakistan's army launched a ground offensive against the Taliban in South Waziristan in mid-October, saying it was determined to terminate its No. 1 internal enemy in its most forbidding stronghold. The army said it sent some 30,000 troops to take on about 10,000 militants, including many foreign fighters.
But the operation prompted a slew of retaliatory suicide and other bombings nationwide that have killed more than 500 people, attacks that have continued even as the military's battlefield activities have slowed down in South Waziristan.
On Wednesday, the military said it killed 589 militants so far, losing 79 soldiers. None of the top Pakistani Taliban leaders were captured or killed in the onslaught, and many are believed to have fled to North Waziristan and Orakzai. The latter has been the home base for Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.
Access to the tribal regions is severely restricted, making independent verification of such details nearly impossible.
In recent weeks, the military has occasionally used helicopter gunships to pound militant targets in Orakzai. Such airstrikes could be a prelude to a ground offensive, just as they were in South Waziristan.
