Pakistan Retakes Key Town From Taliban: Military

Will redeploy 6K troops from Indian to Afghan border
By Matt Cantor,  Newser Staff
Posted Apr 29, 2009 8:29 AM CDT
Pakistan Retakes Key Town From Taliban: Military
Pakistani Taliban members hold their weapons as they gather before leaving Buner, northwestern Pakistan on Friday, April 24, 2009.   (AP Photo/Naveed Ali)

After deploying jets and helicopters yesterday in response to a Taliban incursion into the Buner district, Pakistan has taken back a key town, the military says. The country will also shift 6,000 troops from the Indian border to face militants along the Afghan border, said an official, a move welcomed by American authorities who say Pakistan is doing too little to battle militants, the New York Times reports.

Taped phone conversations showed the Taliban staged an exit from Buner last week, said a military spokesman. “The government acted with patience, but eventually there was no other way except to launch an operation,” he said. Fifty Taliban insurgents and one soldier were killed in the fighting, the BBC reports.
(More Pakistan stories.)

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