ISLAMABAD: Humanitarian agencies active in Pakistan’s northwest have been quietly told to prepare for up to 365,000 displaced people in advance of a military offensive against North Waziristan, a senior official with an international humanitarian agency said.
The official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, was responding to a media report in a local newspaper that Pakistan will launch a military offensive against al Qaeda and Taliban safe havens in the Afghan border regions.
“Humanitarian agencies operating in FATA and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa were given the heads up two weeks ago by the authorities of a possible displacement of up to 50,000 families,” he said, referring to the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and the northwest province.
A similar tip-off in 2009 preceded a military offensive in neighbouring South Waziristan by about five months, he said.
Other aid agencies were not immediately available for comment.
An understanding for an offensive in North Waziristan, the main sanctuary in Pakistan for militants fighting in Afghanistan, was reached when Clinton and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen visited Pakistan last week. The United States has long demanded that Pakistan attack the region to eliminate the Haqqani network, one of the deadliest Afghan militant factions fighting US troops in Afghanistan.
Pakistan’s air force would soften up militant targets under the “targeted military offensive” before ground operations were launched.
A strategy for action in North Waziristan had been drawn up some time ago and an “understanding for carrying out the operation was developed” during the Clinton visit. But the United States would almost certainly push for a move against Haqqani, too.
http://thecapitalpost.com/agencies-told-prepare-evacuation-p-4143.html
