Pakistani authorities are preparing for the return of residents to Swat's main town but decisive victory will only be won when Taleban leaders are dead, an army commander said on Wednesday. The military offensive to expel the Taleban from Pakistan's Swat Valley could take another two months to complete, and troops may have to stay for a year to prevent militants from retaking control, commanders said Wednesday. The armed forces have secured control over several key towns during the month-old campaign in the volatile northwestern region, but the fighting has uprooted some three million people from their homes and triggered a series of suspected reprisal attacks elsewhere in the country. Chief army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas told reporters on a military-organized tour of Mingora town that it could take another two months of fighting to root the militants from all of their hide-outs in the lush, mountainous valleys of Swat and surrounding areas. He cautioned, though, that two month timetable was “a rough estimate.” Earlier, Maj. Gen. Ijaz Awan, a senior commander in the eight-day battle for Mingora, said the military is gearing up for a fight in nearby Kabal town where top Taleban leaders are suspected of being holed up. “We have bottled them up very well, hopefully this will be a decisive battle here” in Kabal, said Awan. “Their deaths are vital to killing their myth.” The battle for Swat, launched in late April after the militants abandoned a peace deal with the government that gave them control of the region, is seen by Washington as a test of Pakistan's resolve against militants in the northwestern border region with Afghanistan. The army began battling Taleban in the region in late April, after a militant thrust into a district 100 km northwest of the capital raised fear at home and abroad that the nuclear-armed country could slowly slip into militant hands. The army has secured the main town of Mingora and pushed militants out of many other parts of the Swat valley, until recently famous for its ski slopes and summer hiking, but the fighting has also forced about two million people from their homes. There are no independent casualty estimates but the army says more than 1,230 militants have been killed, while it has lost more than 90 men. But Taleban leaders in Swat have apparently escaped the army's fire. Major-General Ijaz Awan, an army commander in Swat, said conclusive victory would only be won when they were killed. “Their death is vital to kill their myth,” Awan told a group of reporters flown to Swat by the army on Wednesday. The United States, which criticized a February peace pact with the Taleban in Swat as tantamount to abdicating to the militants, has applauded the offensive. The United States needs Pakistani help to defeat Al-Qaeda and subdue the Taleban in Afghanistan. While Swat is not on the Afghan border, there was a danger it could have become a bastion for militants fighting across the region. Swat's Mingora town has been under curfew for most of the past three weeks and looked completely deserted on Wednesday. Buildings at several main intersections had been badly damaged and broken glass and debris were scattered across the ground. But most buildings in the rest of Mingora appeared intact. Beyond the town, the Swat river snakes through green fields and orchards that cover the valley floor. Awan told reporters in a briefing at a post near Mingora the army had been ordered not to use heavy weapons or airstrikes in the town to minimise damage. Civilian casualties had been “very few”, he said. About 35,000 to 40,000 out of a total population of 350,000 remained in Mingora, Awan said. The army has been trucking in food and other supplies for them.
