Sudan's president warns foreigners in Darfur

Sudan's president warns foreigners in Darfur.

EL FASHER, Sudan – Sudan's president threatened to kick out more aid groups and expel diplomats and peacekeepers on Sunday during his first trip to Darfur after an international court issued an arrest warrant against him for war crimes there.
Sudan has already expelled 13 of the largest aid groups operating in Darfur as part of its defiant response to the International Criminal Court's decision last week to indict him. Sudan has accused them of cooperating with the Netherlands-based ICC.
The statements came as the Sudanese army announced it was moving toward putting its army on full alert by mobilizing three-quarters of its troops, according to the Sudan Media Center, a news agency with close links to the government.
The army renewed its allegiance to President Omar al-Bashir and said it was ready to confront any possible threat, according the report, quoting a statement from the army's chief of staff, Gen. Mohammed Nasreddin.
Al-Bashir was greeted by thousands of cheering supporters, including some on horse and camel back, in the North Darfur capital of El Fasher. Brandishing a sword, he told the throngs that others could be ordered to leave if they got involved with the ICC case. The rally was attended by a number of Arab diplomats, including Egyptian, Jordanian and Lebanese. Western envoys did not accompany the president on the trip.
"Those who respect themselves, we will respect them. Don't interfere in something that doesn't concern you," al-Bashir said. "Don't do anything that would harm the country's security and stability."
"Whoever deviates, we will not let them stay, whether a voluntary organization, an envoy, a diplomatic mission or a security force," he added.
A Chinese company signed a contract to build a road in the area during the ceremony, reflecting Sudan's continuing close ties with China despite the crisis.
The Netherlands-based ICC accuses al-Bashir of leading a counterinsurgency against Darfur rebels that involved rapes, killings and other atrocities against civilians. Up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million driven from their homes in the conflict since 2003, according to the U.N.
The rally in El Fasher took place far away from the teeming refugee camps where tens of thousands of refugees live after fleeing their homes because of attacks by the government-backed Arab militias.
Al-Bashir rejects the charges and refuses to deal with the ICC. Arab and African nations are pressing the U.N. Security Council to defer any prosecution for at least a year, hoping to defuse the crisis.
The crowd waved aloft pictures of al-Bashir as well as posters ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo with an X drawn over his face.
"Tell them all, the ICC prosecutor, the members of the court and every one who supports this court that they are under my shoe," he said. In the Muslim world, stepping on somebody or striking them with shoes is considered an insult.
Hundreds lined the streets of El Fasher as al-Bashir paraded through the town waving from the back of an open pickup truck. The governor of northern Darfur, Mohammed Kebir, told the crowd at the ceremony that this showed that the president was not afraid to visit a region where he is supposedly had committed war crimes.
Al-Bashir accused aid groups of stealing funds allocated to Darfur, saying only a fraction of the donated money actually makes it to the people.
"We tell them this is not going to continue," he said to the cheering crowd. "We are ready to fill the gap ... we will spend it from our pocket."
The United Nations and humanitarian workers say the order punches a giant hole in the safety net that has kept many Darfur civilians alive during six years of war in the vast, arid region of western Sudan.
Without the groups, 1.1 million people will be without food, 1.5 million without health care, and more than one million without drinking water — and outbreaks of infectious disease are a greater danger, the U.N. says.

Reply:

The number of starving people and refugees, forced to flee for their lives, just continues. This is becoming a matter of genocide, and as such, the world must stand up for the dispossessed with more than words. The UN should send troops to help these people, and forget about the wishes of a President who would starve and kill elements of the people he is supposed to govern fairly. Those that would make the country safe for all its people must stand together against this tyrant and his murdering minions. D**n him in hades forever!

Pledges of peace after fatal N.Ireland attack

Pledges of peace after fatal N.Ireland attack. (AP)

ANTRIM, Northern Ireland – Leaders of Northern Ireland's Catholic-Protestant government pledged to keep the peace Sunday after Irish Republican Army dissidents fatally shot two off-duty British soldiers meeting pizza delivery men at a barracks entrance.
The two senior figures in the 22-month-old coalition postponed a U.S. trip and pledged to intensify their cooperation in response to the first deadly attack on British security forces in 12 years.
Police said the gunmen opened fire from a car outside the base, then shot at least some victims at close range as they lay on the ground. Four soldiers were hit, two fatally. Also shot were the two delivery men, a local teenager who was seriously wounded and a 32-year-old Polish immigrant who remained in critical condition Sunday night.
The Sunday Tribune newspaper said it received a claim of responsibility in a phone call from a man claiming to represent the Real IRA splinter group. The paper said the caller, who used a code word to verify he was a spokesman for the outlawed gang, defended the shooting and described the Domino's Pizza workers as "collaborators of British rule in Ireland."
The Real IRA was responsible for the deadliest terror attack in Northern Ireland history: a 1998 car-bombing of the town of Omagh that killed 29 people, mostly women and children.
The senior Catholic in the power-sharing coalition, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, said dissidents were trying to rekindle sectarian bloodshed and force Britain to resume sterner security policies.
The IRA killed nearly 1,800 people from 1970 to 1997 in a failed effort to force Northern Ireland out of the United Kingdom and into the Republic of Ireland. The IRA disarmed and renounced violence in 2005, but splinter groups using a wide range of labels have tried to continue the campaign.
Both Catholics and Protestants vowed that the attack would not weaken power-sharing, the central accomplishment of the U.S.-brokered Good Friday peace accord in 1998.
McGuinness, a former IRA commander, said he and Protestant leaders were determined to ensure that sanity and political progress prevail against "absolutely futile" dissident violence.
First Minister Peter Robinson, the Protestant leader of the coalition, urged Protestant extremists not to retaliate against the Catholic community. Two outlawed Protestant groups, the Ulster Defense Association and the Ulster Volunteer Force, claim to have renounced violence but have refused to disarm — because they reserve the right to seek revenge for dissident IRA acts.
"Can I urge all of those who may be angry within the (pro-British) unionist community — this is a matter to be left entirely with the police and the authorities," Robinson said.
Robinson and McGuinness still expect to visit President Barack Obama at the White House on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, when Northern Ireland leaders traditionally seek American political and economic support. But they canceled meetings scheduled to start Monday with several U.S. businesses operating in Northern Ireland.
In Washington, a spokesman said President Barack Obama "condemns in the strongest terms the attacks yesterday in Northern Ireland."
"The United States supports the unified government in Northern Ireland and the historic steps it has taken toward a future of peace and prosperity for all in Northern Ireland," said Mike Hammer, the spokesman for the White House's National Security Council. "Those who perpetrated these cowardly acts do not represent the will of the people of Northern Ireland, who have chosen a path of peace and reconciliation."
Police commander Hugh Orde — who had warned of an imminent dissident attack — said he was certain he could keep British troops off the streets, a key peacemaking achievement in force since 2007. More than 4,000 troops are based here but train exclusively for overseas deployments and are rarely seen in uniform in public.
Scores of Corps of Royal Engineers soldiers were hours from deploying to Afghanistan when they ordered pizzas from a Domino's Pizza outlet, a normal Saturday night practice.
Two suspected IRA dissidents opened fire with assault rifles as four soldiers, already wearing their desert camouflage fatigues, collected pizzas from the two Domino's workers outside the entrance of the Massereene army barracks, in the town of Antrim west of Belfast.
Police Chief Superintendent Derek Williamson, who is leading the hunt for the killers, said all six were believed to have been wounded during the initial volley of bullets — then the gunmen got out of their vehicle and shot some again up close.
Police said the attackers must have noticed that unarmed soldiers were in the habit of walking to the base gates to collect fast-food orders. Orde said the soldiers and pizza men had no idea they were targets because Northern Ireland has become "a far more normal and safe place to live."
Williamson identified the two fatal victims as Royal Engineers in their early 20s but declined to reveal their names. The rest of their unit departed Sunday for Afghanistan after giving statements to police.
Police later found the attackers' getaway vehicle in the nearby town of Randalstown. No arrests were reported.
The dissidents have ratcheted up their violence since November 2007, when they shot two policemen in the face with shotgun blasts. Both survived. Several more police officers have been wounded in more than a dozen rocket, bomb and gun attacks since — but until Saturday, efforts to attack army installations had fizzled or been intercepted by police.
The Real IRA claim of responsibility appeared consistent with the splinter group's recent threats to target civilians who conduct business with British security forces. For decades the IRA similarly reserved the right to kill anyone who worked or provided supplies for the police and soldiers.
Catholic and Protestant congregations in Antrim walked at midday from their churches to the scene of the killing, where police forensic specialists in white masks and boiler suits were still searching nearby ground for bullet fragments and casings.
Ministers from the Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian and Methodist churches took turns praying for the dead and wounded, for the IRA dissidents to give up, and for their often-bickering leaders to stay on a path to reconciliation.
"We don't want those years of the past. They were horrible years for everyone," a Catholic priest, the Rev. Tony Devlin, told the crowd of several hundred. "In our churches today many people were crying because of the experiences they remembered from the past. They do not want it to come back again."

REPLY:

The differnce between a freedom fighter and a terrorist is decided by the majority of the people involved. The current governmental condition in Northern Ireland was decided by popular majority vote and the will of the people has been peacefully demonstrated for over ten years. This attack is therefor obviously a murderous/lone operation act because the majority of the people want peaceful debate and governance not violence. The will of the majority is the difference between a murderer and a patriot. They proved themselves to be murderers and not soldiers when they purposefully included the pizza drivers as targets.

This is tragic for more reasons that I want to type. Why would anyone want to return to the days of tanks, bombs, guns and death. Is all that peace and prosperity in Ireland getting dull so things are getting livened up a bit? Hopefully calmer heads will prevail and this will not start a chain reaction.

This is a hard one to deal with. My family is Irish and English plus I live in California (1st Generation on my mums side). My family is very far North and has a lot of Welsh and Irish influence. We/I've seen 1st hand whats been happening for years. I hate to see them going at it again. In fact I can't stand all thats going on between so many countries. I'd love to see this world become supportive of each other and try to at least get along but I know better. Guess I just needed to get that off my chest.

GENEVA – The U.N. human rights office will examine whether Sudan's decision to expel aid groups constitutes a breach of basic human rights and possibly a war crime, a spokesman said Friday.
Rupert Colville said the Sudanese decision to expel relief workers from 13 of the largest aid groups constitutes a "grievous dereliction" of duty, putting the lives of thousands at risk.
The World Food Program says some 1.1 million of the 2-3 million people it feeds each month are dependent on deliveries from the groups that have been expelled.
Sudan ordered the organizations out after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for President Omar al-Bashir for war crimes and crimes against humanity in the Darfur conflict. It has accused the groups such as CARE and Save the Children of cooperating with the court and giving false testimony. The groups deny the accusations.
"To knowingly and deliberately deprive such a huge group of civilians of means to survive is a deplorable act," said Colville, who speaks for U.N. human rights chief Navi Pillay. "Humanitarian assistance has nothing to do with the ICC proceedings. To punish civilians because of a decision by the ICC is a grievous dereliction of the government's duty to protect its own people."
"This decision by the government could threaten the lives of thousands of civilians," living in camps in Darfur and elsewhere, he added.
A senior foreign ministry official in Khartoum, Mutrif Siddique, said the Sudanese humanitarian affairs ministry, which is responsible for the work of aid agencies, is aware the expulsion of these organizations will have an impact on people in Sudan.
"This ministry and authorities have made arrangements to avoid a food shortage or a medical crisis," he said. "There will be a partial effect and they (authorities) will work to avoid any shortage.'
Siddique claimed that major U.N. aid agencies were not affected by this expulsion decision and stressed that "hundreds of Sudanese NGO workers remain and work in Darfur."
The World Food Program questioned whether the remaining aid groups would be able to fill the gap.
"We simply don't have the capacity to carry out the life saving work of the NGOs," said the agency's spokeswoman in Geneva, Emilia Casella.
Under the Geneva Conventions it is illegal to intentionally starve people to death by blocking their access to food. The rule applies to international conflicts, but efforts have been made to incorporate it in customary international humanitarian law, which would carry weight in courts.
Other U.N. agencies also expressed concern about the consequences of losing their aid partners. The World Health Organization said it would tear a hole in the body's disease monitoring efforts that could lead to outbreaks of infectious diseases going unchecked.
"If they are not helping us do this very vital work, we may see the emergence of infectious diseases," said WHO spokeswoman Fadela Chaib.
There is currently an outbreak of meningitis in Nyala, the capital of South Darfur, she said. One of the groups, Medecins Sans Frontieres-Holland, was carrying out meningitis vaccinations in the area before it was expelled.
On Thursday, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said Sudan's decision will cause "irrevocable damage" to humanitarian operations in Darfur and called on the government to urgently reconsider its decision.
At least 2.7 million people in the large, arid region of western Sudan have been driven from their homes in the war between Darfur rebels and the government since 2003. Ban said 4.7 million people in Darfur are receiving aid.
Sudan's foreign ministry official indicated that Khartoum might try to stem mounting tensions over the expulsion order by seeking a compromise with the aid groups.
Asked if there is a chance Sudan will reconsider the expulsion, Siddique said that "there is no such thinking" but that "alternatives remain open."
On the question of whether the expulsion could constitute a war crime, his answer was defensive.
"Their campaign against us continues," he said, without elaborating who "they" are but apparently referring to the ICC and anyone accusing Sudan of wrongdoing in Darfur.
"They are ignoring that the Sudanese government has diverted some of its oil revenues to provide for Darfur," Siddique said.
The U.N. has identified the NGOs expelled as Oxfam GB, CARE International, MSF-Holland, MSF-France, Mercy Corps, Save the Children Fund-UK, Save the Children Fund-US, the Norwegian Refugee Council, the International Rescue Committee, Action Contre La Faim, Solidarites, CHF International and PADCO.
Sudan's expulsion order removes 40 percent of the aid workers in Darfur, roughly 6,500 national and international staff, said Catherine Bragg, the U.N.'s deputy emergency relief coordinator. She said at U.N. headquarters that 76 NGOs had been operating in Darfur along with all major U.N. agencies.
The U.N. humanitarian coordination office says the global body will have a hard time making up for the loss of its aid partners.
Christophe Fournier, president of Medecins Sans Frontieres' umbrella group, MSF International, said there was "absolutely no way" the remaining aid workers would be able to meet the needs of the population in Darfur.

REPLY:

The only thing the U.N. is good for is whining when it comes to Darfur. They've said Bashir was behind the genocide back in '01 and where is he now? Thumbing his nose and sneering at all of us from his presidential stronghold. This is maddening and sick. What does it take for them or anyone to see the over all picture is GENOCIDE!!!!

Court issues war crimes warrant for Sudan's Bashir

Court issues war crimes warrant for Sudan's Bashir

THE HAGUE, Netherlands – The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant Wednesday for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. He is the first sitting head of state the court has ordered arrested.
Al-Bashir's government denounced the warrant as part of a Western conspiracy aimed at destabilizing the vast oil-rich nation south of Egypt. The U.N. said Sudan had ordered the expulsion of six to 10 humanitarian groups from Darfur including Oxfam, Solidarities and Mercy Corps, and seized assets.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called the move a "serious setback to lifesaving operations in Darfur."
Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo had accused Sudanese troops and the janjaweed Arab militia they support of murdering civilians and preying on them in refugee camps. He said the militia also waged a campaign of rape to drive women into the desert, where they die of starvation.
But the three-judge panel in The Hague said there was insufficient evidence to support charges of genocide in a war in which up to 300,000 people have died and 2.7 million have fled their homes.
"He is suspected of being criminally responsible ... for intentionally directing attacks against an important part of the civilian population of Darfur, Sudan, murdering, exterminating, raping, torturing and forcibly transferring large numbers of civilians, and pillaging their property," court spokeswoman Laurence Blairon said. If al-Bashir is brought to trial and prosecuted, he faces a maximum sentence of life imprisonment.
Blairon rejected accusations that the warrant was part of a political plot and said the decision was made purely on legal grounds.
But African and Arab nations fear the warrant will destabilize the whole region, bring even more conflict in Darfur and threaten the fragile peace deal that ended decades of civil war between northern and southern Sudan. China, which buys two-thirds of Sudan's oil, supports the African and Arab positions.
Some African nations reportedly threatened to pull out of the court in retaliation for a warrant. Thirty African countries are among the court's 108 member states.
In a show of defiance Tuesday in anticipation of the decision, al-Bashir told supporters at a rally, "We are telling them to immerse it in water and drink it," a common Arabic insult meant to show extreme disrespect.
Hundreds of Sudanese waving pictures of the president and denouncing the court quickly turned out in a rally at the Cabinet building in Khartoum. Security was increased around many embassies, and some diplomats and aid workers stayed home amid fears of retaliation against Westerners.
The U.N., which has a joint peacekeeping mission in Darfur with the African Union, will continue to deal with al-Bashir, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas said at U.N. headquarters in New York.
"President al-Bashir is the head of state of Sudan, and United Nations officials will continue to deal with president al-Bashir when they need to do so," Montas said.
Al-Bashir denies the war crimes accusations and refuses to deal with the court. Sudan does not recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to arrest suspects and there is currently no international mechanism to arrest al-Bashir. The main tool the court has is diplomatic pressure for countries to hand over suspects.
U.N. peacekeepers and other international agencies operating in Sudan have no mandate to implement the warrant, and Sudanese officials have warned them not to go outside their mandates.
The United States is not a member of the international court, but Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told The Associated Press, that "the United States supports the ICC action to hold accountable those who are responsible for the heinous crimes in Darfur."
"Those who committed atrocities in Sudan, including genocide, should be brought to justice," she said.
The EU welcomed the court's decision to issue an arrest warrant for al-Bashir and urged Khartoum to cooperate "fully and provide any necessary assistance to the Court."
Ocampo suggested al-Bashir could be arrested if he flies out of Sudan.
"As soon as Mr. al-Bashir travels in international airspace, his plane could be intercepted and he could be arrested. That is what I expect," the prosecutor said.
"Like Slobodan Milosevic or Charles Taylor, Omar al-Bashir's destiny is to face justice," Moreno Ocampo said referring to the former presidents of Yugoslavia and Liberia who were indicted while in office and ended up on trial in The Hague.
Asked why judges, in a 2-1 split decision, did not issue the warrant for genocide, Blairon explained that genocide requires a clear intent to destroy in part or as a whole a specific group.
"In this particular case, the pretrial chamber has not been able to find there were reasonable grounds to establish a genocidal intent," she said.
She said prosecutors could ask again for genocide charges to be added to the warrant if they can produce new evidence. Prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo said he would study the ruling before deciding whether to keep pursuing genocide charges.
The war in Sudan's western Darfur region began in 2003, when rebel ethnic African groups, complaining of discrimination and neglect, took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum. In 2005, the U.N. Security Council asked Moreno Ocampo to investigate crimes in Darfur.
"With this arrest warrant, the International Criminal Court has made Omar al-Bashir a wanted man," said Richard Dicker, director of the International Justice Program at Human Rights Watch. "Not even presidents are guaranteed a free pass for horrific crimes. By ruling there is a case for President al-Bashir to answer for the horrors of Darfur, the warrant breaks through Khartoum's repeated denials of his responsibility."
The Rome statute that set up the International Criminal Court allows the Security Council to vote to defer or suspend for a year the investigation or prosecution of a case. It also gives the council authority to renew such a resolution.
The 52-member countries of the African Union and 26 states of the Arab League make up about a third of U.N. member states and they have said they would call for such a suspension.
But the council is sharply divided on suspending the case and is unlikely to take any action.

I'll say it again but in more detail:

Somewhat it gives me hope that things will be changing but only time will tell. I'm glad that the ICC and the U.N. has taken steps to establish what they deem to be going on even if it's war crimes and crimes against humanity ( better known as Genocide but deemed to hard to prove ) but it's one thing to talk the talk and another to walk the walk. With other countries turning their backs on what is happening in Darfur we have to make sure we hold the US,UN and ICC accountable for what it has promised and not allow them just to give him a slap on the hand. I truly hope that this is a start to the end of the nightmare these poor people have been living.

Truth be told there has never been a leader that has still been in power that has had these charges brought against him. With a mass of support from peoples this is a matter that will most likely see more terror before he's taken down and even when/if we do detain him the people that stood behind him are still going to rage war and terror. It maybe a start to an end but its far from over. My hope is that we haven't hit a hornets nest with a stone. The backlash could be far worse. "Al-Bashir denies the war crimes accusations and refuses to deal with the court. Sudan does not recognize its jurisdiction and refuses to arrest suspects and there is currently no international mechanism to arrest al-Bashir. The main tool the court has is diplomatic pressure for countries to hand over suspects".

It is a double edge sword here. These people (Darfur) need to see peace and an end to what has happened that never should have been. The fact it took so long to finally do something has made this much worse seeing as how his power got much stronger and his following larger. They are already starting to show that they won't give up power easily. Only time will tell what will happen next. I am glad however that Darfur is being heard now!!!!

Reply to a Blog on Genocide in Darfur

In many of the News articles and books I've read its been an on going debate about "Genocide in Darfur". What I've come to find in many cases is they will use phrases like "crimes against humanity" and "mass atrocity crimes". Reason being that The Convention definition states that certain acts be committed with intent to destroy, in whole or part, a national, ethical, racial, or religious group, and its extremely hard to establish the element of specific intent to destroy non-Arabs in Darfur. One thing they all agree on is that "mass atrocities and/or crimes against humanity" are happening in Darfur as well as many others. Somewhat it gives me hope that things will be changing but only time will tell. I'm glad that the US has taken steps to establish what they deem to be going on(Genocide) but it's one thing to talk the talk and another to walk the walk. With other countries turning their backs on what is happening in Darfur we have to make sure we hold the US accountable for what it has promised and not allow them to sit back.

Why should Americans care about human suffering in Africa? Why should you or I care?

Why should Americans care about human suffering in Africa? Why should you or I care?

I could give you a speech about how hard it is and how much we need to do but I'm just going to give you 3 good reasons why.

1) Preventing, suppressing and punishing genocide is moral. As a Nation and as individuals we cannot just sit by as innocent people are being killed, disfigured and forced out of their homes by acts of violence.

2)We made a promise to "Save Darfur"! It's not just a slogan or a cute button it's our commitment that we made . Even if other countries have decided to turn their backs or look away from the violence that's happening in places such as Dafur it doesn't allow us to walk away from what we said we would do.

3) Getting rid of genocide will make Americans and others safer. This is about creating a safer world for all the children and adults. Hate breeds hate. United together in the struggle for truth, justice and basic human rights we can win. We have done it before!

The voices are getting louder and stronger calling for action. These voices come from different sexes, races, religions, children, adults and many more. For us and for our future, to right the wrong we will not give up.

Despite what you hear/see on the news there are signs of progress. Even with all the heart break and tragedy there is good news coming from Africa each day. There has been movement away from dictatorship, towards democracy in some countries. Peace agreements have been made in countries that just a few years ago had been ripped apart. Liberia, Angloa, Rwanda and Burundi are just a few to be named that have made this movement.

The decisions we need to make to protect those who are suffering are clear, the sooner done more lives will be saved.

Pakistan says Taliban beaten back in border region

Pakistan says Taliban beaten back in border region (AP)
KHAR, Pakistan – Pakistan has beaten the Taliban in a major stronghold close to the Afghan border, is close to victory in another and expects to pacify most of the remaining tribal areas before the end of the year, commanders said Saturday.
The upbeat assessment of conditions in the arid, mountainous regions of Bajur and Mohmand follows international criticism of Pakistan for accepting a cease-fire with militants behind a bloody campaign in Swat Valley, just next to the tribal regions.
Many analysts also fear that growing political turmoil between the government and opposition could distract attention from the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban just as Washington wants more concerted action.
The United States and independent analysts have praised the offensive in Bajur, saying it has helped stem the passage of militants from Pakistan into Afghanistan, where violence against American and NATO troops is running at its highest level since the U.S. invasion in 2001.
Pakistan's tribal regions are believed to be a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders. Foreign governments fear extremists there could be plotting attacks on the West.
Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, commander of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, said the insurgency had been "dismantled" in Bajur after six months of battles between well-armed militants and soldiers backed by tanks and helicopter gunships.
He said 1,600 militants had been killed and 150 civilians had died. Both figures were impossible to verify independently.
"Their resistance has broken down. We control the roads," he told reporters flown to the northwestern region by helicopter. "They have lost."
Col. Saif Ullah, commander in the neighboring region of Mohmand, said troops had repelled insurgents from most of the territory and it would soon be cleared.
"There are no more no-go areas. The militants are running away," he said.
The army took reporters to witness a ceremony marking the victory over the militants conducted by tribal elders and military commanders close to a Bajur town that was the site of a major battle last week. Rows of shops selling household goods and furniture were destroyed, and tanks were parked amid the debris. Residents — most of whom fled before the battle — had not returned to the town in a valley leading to Afghanistan.
American commanders say the Afghan province of Kunar which borders Bajur is still one of the most treacherous areas for their soldiers. The U.S. has earmarked it for some of the thousands of reinforcements being deployed to Afghanistan this year.
Khan said the defeated insurgents were mostly Afghans and Pakistanis, with some Uzbeks and a few Arabs caught in the early days of the offensive.
He said the army had failed to capture any insurgent leaders and that they had most likely fled into Afghanistan. Asked why, he said it was the job of special forces or intelligence agencies — not the army — to capture individual suspects.
Khan said the army had done its job of restoring government rule to the region, predicting military operations in the five of the seven tribal areas under his command "would be over by the end of the year."
He did not discuss conditions in the North and South Wazirstan regions which are not under his command. Both areas are considered major al-Qaida and Taliban strongholds and are frequently hit by missiles fired by unmanned U.S. aircraft.
The display of Pakistan's military gains in the area came as it faces criticism for failing to dislodge militants from the nearby Swat region, where troops and insurgents are observing a cease-fire while the commander of the Taliban considers a proposed peace deal. The United States and NATO worry a deal could turn the scenic region into a militant haven.
Political developments in the desperately poor country of 170 million people have also concerned the West.
On Wednesday, the Supreme Court banned opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from elected office, triggering violent protests by his supporters. Sharif says he will join demonstrations later this month by lawyers who helped bring down former military ruler Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Aside from fears the confrontation will undermine the anti-terror fight, it is also raising worries about possible military intervention, a frequent result of political turmoil between civilian leaders in Pakistan.

REPLY:

I find it repulsive the media tells the Americans anyone who fights for there country over there without submitting to the American forces, is an insurgent or talliban ............Fact is most of them are common people who are trying to fight back an invading Devil.If thats how The world really defines a talliban or insurgent then count me in, because if the US gets invaded I will fight back also. No ones is just going to put me in there little metal boxes willingly.

Its about time Pakistani Officials finally realized the Tribal Areas were part of the Country. They've been busy enriching themselves, they've forgotten the the welfare of the people living outside the big cities.