(RTTNews) - Pakistani army claimed Tuesday that its forces have killed 21 militants over the past 24 hours in an ongoing military offensive in the restive South Waziristan region.

The military also said that its forces have taken over the Taliban stronghold of Sararogha and troops have begun clearing the area of weapons and ammunition. According to the army, one soldier was killed in the fighting, while two others were injured.

The military said that the operation targeting some six towns in the South Waziristan region is expected to last six to eight weeks. The capture of Sararogha comes just a day after the Pakistani army claimed that it had seized Kaniguram, another key Taliban stronghold, from the militants.

The 22 deaths reported by the military on Tuesday takes the total number of Taliban militants killed in the South Waziristan offensive to 364, and the death toll of the soldiers to 37.

Pakistani military launched the offensive in South Waziristan after receiving clearance from the country's government on 17th October. The much-awaited anti-militant offensive began after months of air raids and shelling militant targets in the region to weaken their resistance ahead of the planned ground offensive.
South Waziristan was the stronghold of former Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud who was killed in a U.S. drone strike in August. Some 30,000 Pakistani troops are involved in the offense, which pits them against an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 hard-core Taliban militants, including about 1,000 Uzbek fighters and some Arab al Qaeda members.

The South Waziristan offensive follows a similar offensive that was launched in the northwestern regions of Swat Valley and the districts of Dir and Buner in May. The military claims to have killed more than 1,700 Taliban militants in the five-month-long offensive, and is currently in the process of wrapping up that operation.

Despite Pakistani government's claims that the anti-Taliban operations in the Swat Valley and the neighboring Dir and Buner districts are almost over, frequent clashes between security forces and Taliban insurgents still breakout in the region.

The Pakistani army's offensive in the northwestern region was initiated after the Obama administration urged Islamabad to take on the Taliban militants it considers responsible for the escalating violence in Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan.

by RTT Staff Writer

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