Ground offensive begins in Pakistan al-Qaida haven (South Waziristan Stronghold Stompdown begins)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan – More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a ground offensive against al-Qaida and the Taliban's main stronghold along the Afghan border Saturday, officials said, in the country's toughest test yet against a strengthening insurgency.

The United States has long pushed the government to carry out an assault in South Waziristan, and it comes after two weeks of militant attacks that have killed more than 175 people across the nuclear-armed country. That has ramped up pressure on the army to act.

Pakistan has fought three unsuccessful campaigns since 2001 in the region, which is the nerve-center for Pakistani insurgents fighting the U.S.-backed government. It is also a major base for foreign militants to plan attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan and on targets in the West.

After months of aerial bombing, troops moved into the region Saturday from several directions, heading to the insurgent bases of Ladha and Makeen among other targets, intelligence and military officials said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the topic or because they were not allowed to brief the media.

Its a stone set in concrete village road.Nice stonework huh> obviously done with local skill but perhaps with US cement and heavy haulerr for the stone and gravel/sand. The USA gave Afghanistan its first completely paved road running from North to South through the country, as well. This had a huge ipact. We also completely upated their ages old irrigatiob syste around the major rivers, its shicking to see how effective it was.Looks like the Nile valley.GREEN! Yet Obama has said nothing about it. I guess Bush doesn't deserve any credit for that, or for liberating 50 million Iraqis.

Lessee -

Only Anti Pakistan Talibs targeted -

Anti American Talibs untouched -

Some will fight, others melt away into Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan or north and east into Chitral, Gilgit, Baltistan, Kashmir -

No US anvil on Afghan side -

It’s a topsy turvy looking glass world - especially when we refuse to accept the duplicity of the Pakistanis and their skilful,adroit handling of the American policy elites.

Here’s a look - from longwarjournal....
The article is from the Times of London and even they buy the fiction of Imam as “renegade” rather than a integral instrument of Pakistani strategic policy as conducted via its non government proxies - an NGO even, but for jihad and Pakistan.

Imam was defending in Pakistan the allegation that the jihadi Ilyas Kashmiri, alleged by Pakistan to have died in an air strike and who somehow :>>> turned up alive, was formerly a member of Pakistan’s SSG, an elite commando group once led by (sound the trumpets), former President Musharraf!

Who is Colonel Imam?
Today western intelligence agencies believe Imam is among a group of renegade officers from Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) who continued to help the Taliban after Pakistan turned against them following the attacks of September 11, 2001 [note: this list includes Hamid Gul, Javid Nasir, and Zahirul Islam Abbasi, Aslam Beg, and Khalid Khwaja].
United Nations officials and Afghanistan’s intelligence service have reported sightings of him in the Afghan provinces of Helmand and Uruzgan. It is a charge he shrugs off, claiming that at 65 he has not worked for almost eight years.

“I wish I could do it but they don’t need me any more,” he says. “My students are far ahead of me now. They are giving a lesson to the world. I am very proud of them.”

Imam was Pakistan’s consul-general in Herat when the Taliban captured the city in 1995 from Ismail Khan, the mujaheddin commander, who claims the ISI agent oversaw the whole Taliban operation. From there he guided the Taliban as they took over the cities of Mazar-e-Sharif and Jalalabad and eventually captured Kabul.

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