By IANS,
Islamabad : The Pakistani Army has wrested control of over 90 percent of the Malakand division in the restive northwest from the Taliban, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was informed Monday.
The local administration is playing a major role in the rehabilitation of the civilians uprooted by the fighting that erupted there in April, Gilani and army chief Gen. Ashfaq Parvaiz Kayani were told during a briefing in Swat, where they arrived in Monday on a daylong visit. The briefing was conducted by Maj. Gen. Ashfaq Nadeem, who is in-charge of operation ‘Rah-e-Raast’.
Strict security measures were employed during the prime minister’s surprise visit to Swat and the entire area was under the full control of the army.
Gilani was told that due to its successful strategy, the army and the intelligence agencies had managed to capture several militants and due to the efforts of the locals many others had surrendered.
Tribal peace councils have also been set up in different areas of Swat and are supporting and aiding the government in action against the militants.
Quoting sources, Online news agency reported that the army chief and the Special Support Group told Gilani that the military, along with the civil administration was also working on the reconstruction and rehabilitation process of the displaced civilians, who were being provided full security.
Praising the efforts of the armed forced and the people Swat, Gilani said the government was working on a war footing for the rehabilitation and reconstruction of the damaged infrastructure in the war-torn valley.
The prime minister said that the people of Swat had made enormous sacrifices and the government would not leave them in the lurch and would stand by them in their hour of need.
North West Frontier Province (NWFP) Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani, Chief Minister Haider Hoti and other ministers also present during the briefing.
The military had gone into action April 26 after the militants reneged on a controversial peace deal with the NWFP government and instead moved south from their Swat headquarters and occupied Buner, which is just 100 km from Islamabad.
Under the deal, the Taliban were to lay down their arms in return for Sharia laws being imposed in Swat and six other districts that make up the Malakand division.
The operations had begun in Lower Dir, the home district of radical cleric Sufi Muhammad who had brokered the peace deal. The cleric is also the father-in-law of Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah, who is also known as Mullah Radio for his vitriolic anti-government broadcasts.
The cleric has been arrested but Fazlullah’s whereabouts remain a mystery.
The military operations later spread to Buner and Swat and were all but wound down last month, with the focus shifting to the South Waziristan region of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) along the border with Afghanistan.
The military says over 1,500 Taliban were killed in the operations.
Over three million civilians were displaced by the operations in what has been described as the largest and quickest migrations in recent times. With peace now prevailing in the area, large numbers have begin returning home.