Pakistan in Media

By SALMAN MASOOD and CARLOTTA GALL
Published: May 6, 2009, The New York Times.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — As the president of Pakistan prepared for talks in Washington on Wednesday, the security forces here, under American pressure to show greater resolve in combating militants, claimed to have killed at least 35 Taliban fighters in hotly contested areas of the country’s northwest.

Some of the reported clashes, which could not be independently confirmed because the area is closed to journalists, centered on parts of the Swat Valley, north of Islamabad, where black-turbaned Taliban fighters seized control of Mingora, the area’s largest city, on Sunday, renewing American concerns that militancy was spreading unchecked towards the capital.

The advances added to a sense of regional crisis. As American and NATO troops confront militants in Afghanistan, insurgents are displaying increasing self-confidence in neighboring — and nuclear-armed — Pakistan, undermining its role as a key American ally against the Taliban.
On Tuesday, residents flooded out of the Swat Valley by the thousands as the government signaled a new military campaign against the Taliban and as a much-criticized peace accord with the insurgents fell apart.

People crammed into cars and buses and headed south after the local government told residents to leave Swat before a government military offensive. Taliban and government forces have accused each other of scuttling the peace accord, and they traded gun and mortar fire. The Taliban had dug in and laid mines in the streets, girding for battle, residents said.

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