Pakistan bombs Taliban in Waziristan

A policeman checks vehicles entering Buner district, about 220 km (137 miles) northwest of Islamabad June 27, 2009. Nearly 2 million people have fled fighting in the northwest which intensified in late April when the army moved to push the Taliban out of Buner district before launching an offensive in Swat. Thousands of people have been returning to Buner since the government announced recently it was now safe for people to go home.

WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani warplanes killed at least a dozen Taliban fighters Saturday, in a strike on their stronghold near the Afghan border, while police in the southern city of Karachi shot dead five militants.

U.S. officials have issued a steady stream of praise for Pakistan since the government first took the decision to go on the offensive against the militants over two months ago.

Operations in Swat and Buner, two valleys north of the capital of Islamabad, are in their final stages and the focus has switched to the stronghold of Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, a remote tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The air raid Saturday on Mehsud's mountainous redoubt was the latest in a series over recent weeks, and the government has already given orders for the military to mount an all-out assault.

The army is still assembling its forces in South Waziristan, and some diplomats expect some of the troops fighting in Swat to be moved there soon.

Mehsud is accused of a wave of suicide and bomb attacks, and while the body of his force has been focussed inwards against Pakistan, his men also cross into Afghanistan to join the insurgency led by Mullah Mohammad Omar.

U.S. President Barack Obama has put Afghanistan and Pakistan at the centre of his foreign policy agenda and has launched a strategy aimed at defeating al Qaeda and stabilising Afghanistan, where thousands of extra U.S. soldiers are arriving.

The latest encouragement for Pakistan was delivered by Obama's National Security Adviser Jim Jones, when he visited Islamabad this week on a trip that coincided with the Senate's approval for the tripling of aid to Pakistan to about $1.5 billion (900 million pounds) a year for five years.

RISK OF MILITANT ATTACKS ELSEWHERE

A close ally of al Qaeda, Mehsud carries a $5 million U.S. reward on his head.

He is accused of being behind the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, though there are several conspiracy theories over who was behind the former prime minister's death.

Diplomats estimate that Mehsud has more than 20,000 men holed up with him, protected by a series of mountain ridges and dried out river beds, and gullies that provide excellent cover for the guerrilla fighters.

In Saturday's air raid, fighter jets pounded a base run by a militant commander loyal to Mehsud in the Makeen area, around 70 km (44 miles) north of Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

"The planes heavily bombed bases of Commander Shameem in Makeen and we have reports that 12 to 15 militants were killed," an intelligence official in the region told Reuters by telephone.

The great worry is Mehsud's ability to mobilise Taliban elsewhere in Pakistan in retaliation against any attack.

Police killed five militants in a gunbattle after a raid on their hideout in Karachi early Saturday.

"We raided the house on a tip-off that militants were planning attacks in the city," Karachi police chief Waseem Ahmed told Reuters.

Friday, two soldiers were killed and three wounded in the first suicide bombing in Pakistani Kashmir while three people, including two soldiers, were killed in two bomb blasts in North Waziristan.

The army is also concerned about the potential for civilian casualties among villagers living in the Mehsud lands, as it could jeopardise public support that has recently turned in favour of the use of force against the militants.

Pakistan is already struggling to cope with the burden of some 2.5 million people who have fled conflict zones in the northwest, and most of the families from Buner and Swat have still to return home.

Some 45,000 people have fled Waziristan so far, according to military officials.

(Additional reporting by Imtiaz Shah and Alamgir Bitani, Writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Simon Cameron-Moore)