Back in the day, SOP was for the foreign jihadists to arrive in Pakistan and be greeted by handlers in Peshawar (or other cities, but Peshawar was the main one), and gradually processed and evaluated at guest houses constructed for the purpose. There was quite a bit of indoctrination along in here too, the line between madrassa and guest house was and is thin.
Next step was to be sorted into ability groups and sent to training camps along both sides of the border. On successful completion, they would be rotated into the field, sometimes on the front lines of the Afghan Mujahideen-Soviet War, for a period of three weeks to three months, and then back to the guest houses in Pakistan for rest and more indoctrination.
Those who proved themselves on the battlefield, by foreign jihadist standards, (the Afghans generally viewed their fighting abilities with contempt), were assigned to other camps for additional higher order training, and back into the field, for the cycle to begin anew.
In the course of the downtime and training time, many of the foreign jihadists formed relationships with local Pakistanis, families, and presumably girls. Keep in mind that these jihadists were engaged in fighting a superpower on behalf of Islam, and in general, were looked upon as heroes by the Pakistani tribesmen they were living amongst.
After the Soviets pulled out of Afghanistan, many of these foreign militants stayed in the region and settled down.
Those remaining can be divided into two main subgroups. One, foreign jihadists still under contract to Afghan warlords or extremist Islamist groups such as Al Qaeda, and two, new settlers looking to raise a family.
After political resistance began to mount during the Pak offensive against foreign militants in March of this year, it was decided to attempt a political process to distinguish between these two types of leftover jihadists, a part of which included a photo database, checkpoints, and registration.
The underlying assumption was that the peaceful settlers wouldn't mind being registered, especially since doing so would allow them to bypass several days of incarceration and investigation on attempting to pass a checkpoint.
Nek Mohammed, closely affiliated with the still militarily active jihadists agreed to this process to gain official pardon, then changed his mind and spoke out against registration.
Either the peaceful ex-jihadists were intimidated by the militant ones, or else no peaceful ex-jihadists exist, as none registered.
Hence the current operation.
It is my belief that the current offensives began as hasty attacks, as opposed to the deliberate execution of the master plan. Patrols stumbled onto a few jihadists in the course of preparing for a major government offensive. Some were killed and some were captured.
The militants responded by attacking checkpoints at at Torwam Bridge, north of Tiarza in the Shakai valley, and at or near Inzar Narai, which is roughly due north of Faloosha and north west of Wana. The militants occupied the checkpoints for s short period, before Pak maneuver and fire support killed them or drove them off.
Within 24 hours, the major operation was underway, perhaps ahead of schedule, but if so, only by a few days.
Current Pak troop dispositions form a three sided box, open side facing west as follows, Miram Shah south to Wana, and from both towns west to the border with Afghanistan, where the Coalition troops form the fourth side of the box.
It is not currently clear to me whether the Wana-Miram Shah link-up has been completed. Advances from both towns to the west have covered suffucient distance, against presumably heavier resistance, to have completed the perimeter, but there has been no official or speculative reporting that place Pak units much south of Miram Shah, or north of the pass above the Shakai valley.
The area enclosed by the perimeter is comprised of the Shawal Mountain District, a loose ring of rugged ridgelines surrounding a central valley, with the western ridgeline largely comprising the Pak-Afghan border. A search of the term "Shawal" plus relevant terrorist terminology (try "Al Qaeda") will yield additional pertinent information as to the disposition and intent of the militants perhaps still in the area.
Without speculating as to future Pak intentions, I would note that their stated objective has always been to cleanse the tribal areas of foreign militants. I would also note that early descriptions of Operation Mountain Storm from Public Affairs at Baghram included the phrase "Hammer and Anvil".
I would hesitate to expand further on these operations, in fact I am uncomfortable in laying out this much in a public forum. However, all of the above information has been released to the open source media by official Pak military and political leaders, on multiple instances, so I can only conclude that it is their intent to distribute this information.
I FOUND ONE! You are correct - it will take me awhile to get used to this - CP was my first experience with this type of a forum, but I'm REALLY liking what I'm reading here. This is the kind of stuff that led to me to CP in first place...