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Pakistan pledges to eliminate militants

(agencies)
Updated: 2009-10-31 15:12

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's offensive in tribal regions that shelter Taliban fighters will continue until all the country's militants are wiped out, top officials insisted, an apparent reaction to US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's warning that al-Qaida also need to be targeted.

President Asif Ali Zardari, speaking to members of his Pakistan People's Party, said Friday that "there was no turning back ... until the complete elimination of the militants," according to a statement from his office.

Two weeks ago, Pakistan launched a major offensive in South Waziristan, a desolate tribal region along Afghanistan's mountainous border, where the central Pakistani government has long had only minimal control.

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Earlier this week, during a visit to Pakistan, Clinton said she found it "hard to believe" that no one in Pakistan's government knew where al-Qaida's leadership was hiding and that once the current offensive is finished, "the Pakistanis will have to go on to try to root out other terrorist groups, or we're going to be back facing the same threats."

American officials have long said Osama bin Laden and top al-Qaida lieutenants accused in the September 11, 2001 attacks operate out of the region along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan _ a region that includes South Waziristan.

Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the army's chief spokesman, told Geo TV on Friday that the offensive would not simply disperse militants to other parts of the country.

"They are running, but our strategy is not to let them run," he said. The military's goal was to "kill the maximum of them in this area (South Waziristan) because after running they will destroy the peace in other areas."