MUSHARRAF ABOUT TO STRIKE JIHADIST STRONGHOLD

FOX/AP:

The army said Saturday that it has massed 15,000 troops for a major assault on Islamic militants in a scenic northern valley, whose fall has raised concern about Pakistan's ability to withstand rising extremism.

Security forces have been fighting in the Swat Valley, a former tourist destination just 100 miles from the capital, since July, when a bloody army raid on a radical mosque in Islamabad sparked a wave of militant violence.

Foreign fighters allegedly have joined the armed followers of Maulana Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban cleric in the valley, amplifying Western fears that swaths of Pakistan near the Afghan border offer an increasingly safe haven for Al Qaeda.

... The army said Saturday that troops backed by helicopter gunships and artillery were attacking militants to push them back into the mountains overlooking the Karakoram Highway, Pakistan's vital overland route to China.

... Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha said militants from Afghanistan as well as the lawless Pakistani border regions of Waziristan and Bajur had reinforced the followers of Fazlullah in Swat.

Pasha, director general of military operations, said the army had assembled about 15,000 troops in Mingora, the valley's main town and would launch its main offensive within days.

He said they planned to push the militants back into the rugged Piochar side valley where they had established bases.

"We will bottle up as many of them as possible and then eliminate them," Pasha said. "This is our killing ground."

THERE HAVE BEEN REPORTS RECENTLY PUTTING BIN LADEN IN THIS AREA. PERHAPS MUSHARRAF WILL GET HIM SOON? I HOPE SO.