Pakistan Launches Attacks on Taliban Hideouts in Buner

Fighter jets and helicopter gunships launched attacks on Taliban positions in Buner today in a dramatic expansion of a military operation to halt the march of extremists out of the Taliban-controlled Swat Valley.

The army sealed off roads leading to Buner – a district 60 miles north-west of Islamabad – as local residents reported tank and troop movements into the area.

"I saw the jet planes earlier and now I can see two helicopters. They are hitting targets in the mountains close to the town," resident Jaffar Shah told the Guardian by telephone, shortly after the attack started.

Up to 75 militants and 10 security personnel have died since the first phase of the military offensive started in nearby Lower Dir district on Sunday, the army said.

Spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said the object of the Buner operation was to expel 500 militants who had illegally entered the valley in breach of a peace deal between the government and the Taliban.

"We'll start from various positions and we'll move forward with the help of our firepower and clear the valley of the militants," he said.

Since invading the district last week the Taliban had kidnapped youths, stolen property, built defensive positions and punished locals for playing music in their cars, he said.

In Swat the Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, reacted angrily. "The Taliban are Pakistani. They can go anywhere they want," he said.

The controversial peace deal, under which the government agreed to impose Sharia law in exchange for peace, appears to be veering towards collapse.

Khan, speaking from his Swat stronghold, said he considered the agreement applied "only in Swat", and not in the seven other districts of North West Frontier province.

If the army deployed soldiers to Swat, he added, "we will start fighting again".

Buner, a small mountainous district tucked into north-western Pakistan, was the center of world concerns last week when Taliban militants over-ran the district, ransacking foreign aid agency offices and occupying government buildings.

Although the offensive posed no direct danger to Islamabad, the proximity of the advance to the capital stoked American worries that, as Hilary Clinton put it, Pakistan posed a "mortal threat" to world security.

Under immense domestic and international pressure the military launched an operation in Lower Dir district on Sunday, attacking Taliban positions with gunships and artillery.

Today the military said that phase of the operation was nearly over. "There are a few pockets of resistance; those will also be cleared out shortly," said Abbas, the army spokesman.

He insisted the army had a "great capacity to eliminate" the militants. "There is no reason to be worried that they can pose any kind of threat," he said.

The Taliban ratcheted up pressure on journalists in Swat today, distributing tracts that threatened journalists who did not tell "the truth". "Under Sharia law, if you tell a lie you must be punished," Khan said.