Taliban driven from road but still in hills

[May 23, 2009]  DAGAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Army trucks rumbled through a destroyed market a few miles down the road, passing a charred gas station where a Taliban suicide bomber killed four soldiers a few weeks ago when the Pakistani government hit back at an incursion by Islamic extremists.

Most of the fighting is now in the Swat Valley to the west, with the military claiming it has the upper hand here in the Buner region, but civilians and even some police officers expressed fears Friday about venturing into some areas said to be cleared of Taliban.

Sitting in the volatile northwestern tribal region next to Afghanistan, Buner is just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. An advance into the valley by the Taliban led to a government offensive three weeks ago and the collapse of a peace deal with extremists in Swat.

Army leaders say they have the militants reeling, but there was scant evidence of government control being restored in parts of Buner, including Dagar - a town that the military said was "liberated" from the Taliban.

Policeman Shams-ur Rahman kept to the relative safety of the ruins in Ambela Chowk, a village about 12 miles (20 kilometers) from Dagar. He readily gave directions to Dagar, but wasn't willing to go himself.

"You can go there, but the security isn't good enough for us to go," he told The Associated Press.

A heavy military presence in the area was visible at an outpost on the Kandow mountain pass that overlooks Dagar.

"But Dagar is still a problem. There are still fighters there, but in the mountains," Rahman said.

Elsewhere, another police officer, Sawar Khan, said Taliban fighters were moving toward Pir Baba, barely 8 miles (12 kilometers) from Dagar. A resident in Pir Baba reached by phone said insurgents had been seen in the area as well as a mile (2 kilometers) away in Sultan Waft, an area the military earlier said had been cleared of the Taliban.

The Taliban's takeover of Buner last month rattled U.S. officials, generating fears nuclear-armed Pakistan risked a takeover by extremists. It also worried many Pakistanis, and the army responded with one of its strongest assaults on the militants, setting off fighting that has driven an estimated 1.5 million people to flee their homes.

The rugged region of towering mountains separating valleys linked by snaking and sometimes deadly roads is making it tough for the army as it tries to drive off the Taliban. Earlier this week the military brought in more soldiers and equipment to reinforce troops in Buner.

The few people now in Dagar described themselves as reluctant returnees, and most had kept their families away. Several worried Taliban fighters were not far away.

"We have been destroyed by the Taliban," said a white-bearded Ayub Khan, who returned alone from a refugee camp elsewhere in the frontier region where he took his family to escape the fighting.

The International Red Cross on Friday made its first foray into the area since the battle broke out, evacuating two wounded people from Dagar and delivering 312 gallons (1,200 liters) of fuel for the generators at the town's small hospital, spokesman Sebastian Brack told the AP.

On the road leading into Dagar, burned out vehicles sat against the mountains - a small car, a pickup truck, several 16-wheelers. People said the civilians trying to escape the combat got caught in crossfire.

Evidence of the conflict also can be seen in Ambela Chowk.

On April 30, a suicide bomber stepped out of an ambulance and blew himself up next to four soldiers, killing them and setting fire to a gas station. The attendant at the station, Saeed, said helicopter gunships struck back, causing more damage in the village.

Then, Saeed said, soldiers came to investigate, blindfolded him and took him "far away" to a prison for eight days where his questioners wanted to know why he was in the village and whether he was connected to the bombing.

"I was the gas attendant," he said through an interpreter, gesturing to leg injuries that he said were caused by the explosion.

Back on the road to Dagar, cars sped around holes torn by rockets and a few barricades had been tossed to the side. At a roadblock in Kandow, roughly halfway between Ambela Chowk and Dagar, soldiers checked vehicles to be sure Taliban fighters did not try to sneak through.

Most of the traffic was refugees fleeing the fighting in the Swat Valley. Some of the vehicles displayed large white flags to signal both sides they were innocents caught in the middle.

People crammed into dozens of vehicles - wildly colored trucks, old pickups, battered cars - to take advantage of the lifting of the government curfew Friday to get out of Swat, where some said they had been trapped for days by fighting or the curfew.

Some cars heading the other way carried only men, who were heading home to try to harvest their wheat before the grain rotted in the fields. Dozens of threshing machines struggled up the mountain passes, while men could be seen toiling in the fields in searing afternoon heat.

There was still a military imposed curfew in the region which meant traffic had to be off the road by 6 p.m., according to residents in the area.

[Associated Press; By KATHY GANNON]

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