PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Up to 100,000 people have fled their homes in a
district of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan after the military launched
an offensive against Islamist militants, officials said Wednesday.
Thousands
of families escaped from Kurram district after the operation began
early this month in a region where Pakistani militants and Taliban
groups active in Afghanistan have bases and training camps.
"We
have so far registered at least 9,944 families -- up to 100,000
people," senior government official Sahibzada Anis, who is supervising
help for the refugees, told AFP.
He said that about 1,800
families were living in temporary camps but many others had moved
either to relatives' houses or into rented premises.
"These camps
have been set up in schools and colleges, which are closed for summer
vacations," he said. "The government may extend vacations if the
operation prolongs in Kurram."
When it launched the offensive,
the army vowed to clear Kurram of all militants, including those behind
suicide attacks and the kidnapping and killing of locals.
Pakistan's
seven tribal districts bordering Afghanistan are rife with a homegrown
insurgency, and are also strongholds of the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda
operatives.
Although Pakistan has fought Taliban militants across
much of the region, it has so far withstood American pressure to move
against the Al-Qaeda-linked Haqqani network in North Waziristan.
That
region is considered the premier bastion of militancy, and although
there have been reports of Haqqani supporters fleeing into Kurram,
there is no suggestion that the Kurram offensive is targeting them.
Elsewhere
in the tribal areas on Wednesday, five remote-controlled blasts killed
three people and wounded 15 others in the Mohmand region, north of
Kurram.
Mohmand official Javed Khan said those killed were one
soldier and two members of a local peace committee, or anti-Taliban
militia. AFP
