Pakistani Army Chief of Staff Gen. Parvez Kayani today announced that the military was claiming “victory” in its several month offensive against the Orakzai Agency of its Federally Administered Tribal Areas.
Kayani says that the operation “cleared the agency of terrorists,” in a series of air strikes and attacks that have killed somewhere in the realm of 1,000 “suspects” and have displaced around a quarter of a million civilians from their homes.
It is expected that the civilians will be allowed to begin returning to their homes in the next few days, as the Pakistani military turns its attention to offensives in other agencies around the area.
Of the 1,000 suspects killed virtually no significant militants were reported slain, despite the offensive being launched primarily under the assumption that the South Waziristan offensive was failing to net leaders because they had all fled to Orakzai.
The US is now demanding that Pakistan invade North Waziristan, but this too appears to be an example of a meaningless offensive, as the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leadership is said to have left North Waziristan already, returning to South Waziristan.