Pakistan says Taliban fled 2 villages

The now-deserted village, retaken by Pakistani Army forces two weeks ago and viewed by journalists yesterday for the first time, had been a stronghold of Taliban forces for nearly five years. Army officials described its capture as a military and psychological milestone in their month-old operation to flush militants out of the region.

“This place was a fountainhead of terrorism. All government authority was expelled, and the Taliban leaders even had press conferences here,’’ said Major General Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, standing on the roof of a mosque that overlooked the rubble of the local market, school, and stone military fort that were destroyed in five days of heavy fighting.

Army officials said they had killed 180 Taliban fighters in Sararogha, bringing the total of enemy dead to more than 550 since the Waziristan operation began. Yet the officials acknowledged that hundreds, perhaps thousands, more had melted away into the vast desert scrub and craggy hills surrounding this remote outpost, postponing the fight for another day and testing the army’s will to continue pursuing them.

The Obama administration has been pressing Pakistan to move more aggressively against the Taliban forces, a message that national security adviser James Jones was reported to have carried to Pakistani officials during a visit last week. In particular, US officials have urged the army to move into neighboring North Waziristan, where most Taliban fighters are believed to have fled.

But Pakistani officials immediately bristled at the suggestion. Foreign Minister Shah Mahmoud Qureshi declared Monday that Pakistan “will not be prodded by outsiders’’ into conducting particular military operations. Although Pakistan and the United States cooperate closely in the war against Islamist terrorism, the partnership has been fraught with resentment, frustration, and clashing strategic goals.

Amid the signs of bilateral military frictions, army officials seemed eager to portray the recent capture of Sararogha, and another longtime Taliban stronghold in the village of Laddha about 20 miles north, as proof that their Waziristan campaign is moving ahead successfully. The army flew a group of journalists to the region by helicopter and gave them a tour.

In Laddha, a town perched on a high ridge, army officials said Pakistani troops discovered a huge arsenal of weapons and ammunition, as well as piles of Islamic literature, military manuals, chemicals to make explosives, tiny circuit boards for remote-control devices, and handwritten notebooks with religious and military instructions.

Morale seemed high among the soldiers now stationed in the two villages. Many wore long beards, and some saluted visiting officers with the Muslim greeting “Salaam o aleikum.’’ But they took pains to distinguish their notion of faith from the extreme and violent credo of the Taliban.

“These militants say they are fighting a jihad, but we are fighting a jihad against them, against those who have no humanity, no values, and no mercy for the innocent,’’ said Lieutenant Colonel Faridullah as he held up a handmade Taliban poster showing a Kalashnikov rifle surrounded by flowers and poetry. Faridullah, who like many Pakistanis uses only one name, described the town as a Taliban “training hub’’ and said troops had found several bomb-making laboratories.

There was not a single civilian left in either place yesterday, only a few stray donkeys grazing here and there among the rubble of ruined mosques, shops, and schools. Army officials said the villages’ inhabitants had fled long ago, many even before last month’s fighting. But they added that once the region is secure, they hope the government can attract people back with new roads and development projects.

Despite the gung-ho mood accompanying these recent advances, military officials in both towns acknowledged that the Taliban were extremely well organized, armed, and equipped, and said the campaign against them is far from won. They estimate there are between 5,000 and 8,000 active militant fighters in Waziristan, meaning that only a fraction have been killed after a month of combat operations.

“I do not see an end to this war,’’ said Major Nasir Mehsud, an army official who accompanied the journalists. “They want to stretch our resources thin and lure us into difficult areas. We cannot take on these monsters everywhere at once. But they are terrorists, and we must keep on fighting them.’’