Where are Taliban and al Qaeda commanders, US media asks Pak

A day after senior Pakistani army commanders claimed that their forces have captured all major towns and population centres of the extremist-ridden South Waziristan, Taliban and foreign militants appear to have disappeared and not been eliminated.

Army officials said that they have killed as many as 550 Taliban militants a month after the military began its campaign into the lawless territory, yet they acknowledge that hundreds, perhaps thousands more have melted away.

As the offensive into the area, considered to be a sanctuary of al Qaeda and Taliban militants gained momentum, Boston Globe said, "Vast numbers of Taliban and foreign terrorists had disappeared into the vast desert scrub and craggy hills surrounding their strongholds of Sararogha and Ladha".

"Where are they? That's what bothers me," New York Times quoted a senior American intelligence officer as saying.

Azam Tariq, a Tehrik-i-Taliban spokesman claimed that the militants has suffered hardly any casualties."Ours is a strategic withdrawal".

"We will wage a guerrilla war and inflict heavy casualties on the army", he said.

The paper commented that "lasting success" has been elusive for the Pakistani forces. It said that tempered by an agile enemy that has moved easily from one part of the tribal areas to the next—and even deeper into Pakistan—virtually everytime it has been challenged.

The Boston Globe said, it appears that the die-hard Taliban ranks and their top commanders as well as men of the shadowy al Qaeda are postponing the fight for another day to test the army's resolve to continue to pursue them.

Despite the gung-ho mood in the Pakistan Army ranks in the wake of these recent advances, The Washington Post quoted military officials acknowledging that Taliban was well organised, armed and equipped, and that the campaign against them is far from won.

Post said, the Pakistani Army estimated there were 10,000 to 12,000 active Taliban fighters in Waziristan, "which means that only a fraction have been killed".

American journalists taken by helicopters to the erstwhile Taliban strongholds of Sararogha and Ladha by the Pakistan Army said, questions remain where the terrorists have slipped away.

US intelligence and military officials are not sure how long the military will be able to hold the Taliban territory captured.

They wonder once the army leaves, the militants will simply come back.

Media reports said that over the last five years Waziristan's town like Sararogha and Ladha had become mini Taliban states.

While the Americans want the Pakistan Army to keep up the hunt for Taliban and al Qaeda leadership, they fear that Islamabad might end the campaign after crushing Mehsud and cut permanent peace deals with other Pakistani militant factions.

Success in the region, in the remote mountains near the Afghan border, New York Times said could have a direct bearing on how many more American troops are ultimately sent to Afghanistan, and how long they must take.