Gilani vows to defeat Taliban amid fighting

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

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The United Nations said 360,600 refugees had fled Swat and neighboring Dir and Buner districts since operations began last week, according to The Associated Press. That number is on top of some 500,000 people displaced by past offensives - a major humanitarian challenge for the weak government that could test public support for the offensive.

"We were left with no option but to start the operation because the very existence of the country was at stake," Bloomberg quoted Prime Minister Gilani as telling lawmakers in the capital, Islamabad, yesterday. "No matter how strong these terrorists are, they cannot stand up to the army." About 700 militants were killed and 20 soldiers died in the last two weeks, Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters in Islamabad yesterday. The operation against militants is "making headway successfully" as 52 Taliban gunmen were killed in the last 24 hours, the army said in a statement from Rawalpindi. But casualty figures couldn’t be independently verified.

Also yesterday, at least 10 people were killed in a suicide bomb attack in Darra Adamkhel, a tribal area near the border with Afghanistan, GEO television reported.

More than two-thirds of Pakistanis see religious extremism as a "serious problem" in the country, according to a poll released yesterday by the Washington-based International Republican Institute. A record 45 percent of Pakistanis said they support the army in its fight against militants in the northwest region, according to the poll.