Pakistan Army Launches Big Operation After Airport Attack

(Reuters) - Pakistan sent troops, artillery and helicopter gunships to the troubled North Waziristan region on Sunday in a long-expected military operation just a week after a deadly insurgent attack on the country's biggest airport.

The Taliban and ethnic Uzbek fighters holed up in North Waziristan -- home to some of Pakistan's most feared militants and al Qaeda commanders -- have both claimed responsibility for last Sunday's commando-style attack on Karachi airport.

The brazen all-night assault all but destroyed prospects of peace talks with the militants, who are fighting to topple the Pakistani government and impose a strict Sharia-based theocracy in the nuclear-armed nation. The army said a total of 105 insurgents, mostly Uzbeks, were killed by air strikes which preceded the ground operation.

"Our valiant armed forces have been tasked to eliminate these terrorists regardless of hue and colour, along with their sanctuaries," the army said in a statement. "With the support of the entire nation, and in coordination with other state institutions and law enforcement agencies, these enemies of the state will be denied space anywhere across the country."

It was not known where in North Waziristan, a mountainous ethnic Pashtun region on the Afghan border, the operation was taking place. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had long opposed outright military action, stressing the need to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table, and the decision to send troops means that the powerful army had once again won the upper hand in Pakistan. It also raises the risk of revenge attacks by Taliban insurgents outside the tribal region after the Taliban vowed to strike back and hit Pakistani security and government targets.

The army has resorted to periodic air strikes against militant positions but has not been involved on the ground. Earlier on Sunday fighter jets pounded militant hideouts.

"We as a government tried our level best to resolve this crisis through dialogue," the defense ministry said in a statement. "We were frustrated through attacks on innocent Pakistanis and damage to national assets." It added: "This operation will continue until the surrender or elimination of the enemy."

In anticipation of more violence, families have been fleeing North Waziristan into other parts of Pakistan as a climate of fear has gripped the lawless mountainous region. It was not immediately known whether there were any civilian casualties. Journalists' movements are restricted in the ethnic Pashtun region where the army has imposed a curfew, and verifying official or insurgent accounts is next to impossible.

Military sources told Reuters that Pakistan had sent 40,000 troops to the region for the operation, bringing the total to 80,000 and sealing off the border with Afghanistan.

"Around 40,000 additional troops have been moved into North Waziristan for the operation, backed by artillery and helicopter gunships," said a military official. "The border with Afghanistan has been sealed off with thousands of troops to keep militants from escaping to Afghanistan."

Pakistani authorities fear that militants might try to escape through the porous border along with civilians. A senior foreign ministry official said Pakistan had asked Afghan counterparts to help seal the border. "Afghanistan has assured complete assistance but let's see if they follow through," the official said.

CLIMATE OF FEAR

The army said troops had encircled militant bases in the towns of Mirali and Miranshah but as of late Sunday it was unclear if fighting was under way.

"Announcements will be made for the local population to approach designated areas for their orderly and dignified evacuation out of the agency," the army said. The army said ethnic Uzbeks accounted for most of those killed in the earlier air assault. "Fighter jets targeted militant hideouts in the village of Dagan near the Pakistani-Afghan border," said one source in the regional capital of Miranshah. "An important Uzbek commander, Abdul Rehman, has been killed in the air strike," he said, adding that Rehman was directly involved in masterminding the Karachi airport attack.

Military sources said a number of ethnic Uighur militants, who operate alongside Uzbeks and share a similar Turkic language with them, had also been killed. The official account could not be independently verified and there was no immediate comment from the Taliban. China believes that Uighur separatists based in Pakistan's tribal areas are behind an insurgency against Han Chinese in its restive Xinjiang province.

After the Karachi attack, in which 38 people were killed, U.S. drones conducted the first air strikes in Pakistan since the start of the year, hitting militant positions.

(Writing by Maria Golovnina; Additional reporting by Asim Tanveer, Jibran Ahmed and Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Editing by Stephen Powell)