Fighter jets and military helicopters spearheaded the assault on villages around Wana, the main city in South Waziristan, which lies around 18 miles from the Afghan frontier. The area represents a small piece of the mountainous 1,500-mile border between the two countries. U.S. and Pakistani officials claim that 600 opposition forces have gathered there, “including Arabs, Chechens, and Uzbeks,” according to Reuters.

“The Pakistanis…are undertaking the most significant military operation in the tribal areas that they’ve ever done,” Lt. Gen. David Barno, the commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, told reporters June 17. “That includes the use of attack helicopters, jet fighters dropping bombs on a variety of targets there.”

This is “very much a Pakistani-owned and -focused and -directed operation,” the U.S. general said. At the same time, noted the Reuters report, “Barno said U.S. commanders in the field were communicating across the border with their Pakistani counterparts and coordinating with the Pakistanis at their headquarters in Islamabad,” the capital of Pakistan.

On June 16 U.S. president George Bush officially anointed the military government of Pakistan a “major non-NATO ally,” qualifying it for closer military relations. Among the short list of countries so designated are Australia, Egypt, Israel, Japan, and Morocco. Despite the development of closer ties between Washington and the Indian government, the Pakistani regime’s rival, New Delhi has not been inducted into this club.

Pakistani officers claimed a major success for the offensive June 18 with the killing by a missile strike of Nek Muhammad, a former fighter with the Taliban who had staged armed attacks on government forces. Army leaders had negotiated a cease-fire with Muhammad in April, after losing scores of troops to attacks by forces associated with him.

In an interview shortly before his death, Muhammad told the BBC, “We want to eradicate the U.S.-installed puppet governments in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Once we overthrow them, then there will be peace and no one will be able to harm Muslims.”  
 
 
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