Pakistan commandos dropped into Taliban stronghold

MARDAN, Pakistan (AP) — Helicopters dropped Pakistani commandos into a Taliban stronghold in the Swat Valley on Tuesday, pressing ahead with an offensive the army said had killed more than 750 militants and driven around 800,000 people from their homes.

Despite claims of success in an operation that began after heavy U.S. pressure, the army said it had yet to start operations in the region’s main town of Swat, where witnesses say Taliban insurgents are in control and preparing for what could be bloody door-to-door fighting.

Farther south, a suspected U.S. missile attack flattened a house and killed at least eight people in another militant bastion near the Afghan border, officials said, in the latest in a series of attacks that have strained U.S. and Pakistani ties.

Choppers placed troops on “search and destroy” missions in the remote Piochar area in the upper reaches of the Swat Valley, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. Officials have identified Piochar as the rear-base of an estimated 4,000 Taliban militants. It is seen as a possible hiding place of Swat Taliban chief Maulana Fazlullah.

Abbas said the army had yet to begin the “hardcore urban fight,” but Interior Minister Rehman Malik expressed optimism the battle might prove short.