Pakistan: Up to 700 militants killed

The Pakistani government says the country's military offensive against militancy claims the lives of up to 700 militants in northwestern Pakistan. Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on Monday that 20 Pakistani soldiers were also killed in fighting against the militants. The minister added that the operations would continue to completely destroy the militants. The military has already deployed over 15-thousand troops to the conflict zones in the Buner and Dir districts as well as the Swat Valley. Earlier on Sunday, Pakistan's military -- backed by helicopter gunships and heavy artillery -- pounded militants hideouts, a Press TV correspondent reported. Islamabad said that the Sunday clashes killed about 200 militants in northwestern Pakistan's Swat Valley. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimated 150,000 to 200,000 civilians had fled the scene of the fighting in the North-West Frontier Province. A UN spokesman warned that "massive displacement" of civilians is likely with government forces using helicopter gunships, tanks and artillery.

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Petraeus: Afghanistan no longer al-Qaeda haven

Gen. David Petraeus says "very significant losses" in recent months have triggered al-Qaeda to move their headquarters from Afghanistan to western Pakistan. Appearing on "FOX News Sunday" and CNN's "State of the Union," on Sunday the head of the US Central Command said the group was no longer holding its headquarters in Afghanistan. Petraeus, however, said that some branches of the terrorist group are still active in "enclaves and sanctuaries" in Afghanistan. The top US military commander also warned that "tentacles of al-Qaeda" have spread across the countries from the Middle East to northern Africa. Petraeus said he believes Osama bin Laden and his No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri remain in charge of the terrorist network. "They surface periodically. We see communications that they send out," Petraeus said. Though Petraeus said there was no known location for either of the terrorists, he said al-Qaeda senior leadership clearly is rooted in the border region of western Pakistan. "There's no question that al-Qaeda's senior leadership has been there and has been in operation for years," Petraeus said. President Barack Obama and his team claim Pakistan is the new sanctuary for al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives, vowing to withdraw forces from Iraq and redeploy them in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama had earlier declared plans to send another 4,000 troops to Afghanistan in addition to 17,000 extra troops already deployed in the war-ravaged country.

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Zardari: Pakistan won't fall to Taliban

Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari has ruled out that his nuclear-armed county will collapse in face of the Taliban insurgency. "No. We are 180 million people. There the population is much, much more than the insurgents are," Zardari said on Sunday in response to an NBC question asking whether Pakistan was to collapse in face of the Taliban militants. In early May, Gen. David Petraeus, commander of US Central Command, had warned that Pakistan's government risks collapsing if the Taliban were not defeated within the next two weeks. Anxiety was heightened as it was reported that the Taliban were planning to infiltrate into Islamabad and other major cities across nuclear-armed Pakistan. After many such speculations about Taliban advancements, government security forces have launched operations to flush out the militants from the troubled northwestern Swat valley and its adjoining strategic districts near Islamabad. Nearly 200 Taliban militants have been killed in fresh army offensives against militants in the volatile insurgency-plagued Valley over the past day, military sources revealed on Sunday. Zardari has vowed that the army will continue offensives against the Taliban in Swat until security is restored to the volatile valley. Premier Yousuf Raza Gilani has also emphasized the strength of his government saying that state institutions were functioning 'effectively' despite Taliban insurgency. Al-Qaeda and Taliban linked militants have killed thousands of people in hundreds of suicide bombings across the violent-wracked county since former military ruler Pervez Musharraf joined the US-led war on terror in 2001.

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