Pakistan says 49 militants killed as top US officer visits

[David]

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistan's military said Wednesday it had killed 49 insurgents in the northwest, widening the net in the lawless tribal belt as the top US military officer visits for talks on battling extremism.

Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, met top government and military figures to discuss the new US Afghan war strategy, which Washington says hinges on Pakistan's own battle against Islamist extremists.

Pakistan has launched multiple offensives against insurgents this year, but Washington is pushing them to go after the Al-Qaeda leadership, the Afghan Taliban, and other groups seeking sanctuary in the Pakistan-Afghan border area.

The military sent 30,000 troops into Taliban stronghold South Waziristan in October, and is now pursuing insurgents believed to have fled to the other six districts that make up the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

On Tuesday, ground and air operations hit in the Orakzai and Kurram districts in the centre of the tribal belt, Pakistani officials said.

"At least 18 militants were killed when helicopters pounded Toorikhel town of Orakzai when militants were holding an important meeting," paramilitary spokesman Major Fazlur Rehman said.

Local administration official Riaz Khan confirmed the toll and said four more people were killed in air strikes in the town of Sultanzai in Orakzai.

The military also mounted a ground and air offensive on Tuesday in Dagar, a town in the Kurram district, killing 21 militants, Rehman said.

Such death tolls supplied by the military are impossible to confirm independently, with the region out of bounds to media and most aid groups.

While a full-scale military push is under way in South Waziristan, targeted air strikes and limited paramilitary operations are used in other areas of the tribal belt, where the United States also launches drone missile strikes.

In its daily briefing on the South Waziristan operation, the army said Wednesday that six militants and one soldier had been killed in 24 hours.

Islamabad is primarily targeting the Pakistani Taliban, behind most of a wave of attacks that have killed more than 2,700 people since July 2007.

Top US officials, however, want Pakistan to also concentrate on dismantling militant groups with their eye over the border.

The Haqqani network, a powerful Afghan group with bases in North Waziristan, has links to Al-Qaeda and is known for attacks in Afghanistan, but so far has not been the target of a major offensive by Pakistan's military.

Another deeply controversial issue is the alleged presence of Afghan Taliban including supreme Taliban leader Mullah Omar in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta in Baluchistan province -- accusations Islamabad repeatedly denies.

Mullen on Wednesday met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani.

Gilani stressed the need for the United States to work with Pakistan in its regional strategy, and said the military operations were "our own war and every effort would be made to eliminate this menace", a statement from his office said.

He also cautioned the United States against launching drone missile strikes in Baluchistan province, saying they would be "highly counterproductive."

Mullen arrived in Pakistan Tuesday and met General Tariq Majid, ceremonial head of the armed forces, with US President Barack Obama's plan for turning around the unpopular Afghan war topping the agenda.

Obama is deploying an extra 30,000 troops to try and turn the tide in the eight-year war against a Taliban-led insurgency in Afghanistan but has also set a July 2011 deadline to start withdrawing US forces.

The plan has been criticised in Pakistan, as officials and analysts fear a troop surge in Afghanistan will send militants over the border, while a drawdown date will embolden Islamist insurgents in both countries.