Pakistan Army Digs In on Turf of the Taliban: NYT

By JANE PERLEZ and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH

MAKEEN, Pakistan — From a forward base in the bare brown foothills of the soaring mountains of South Waziristan, Pakistani soldiers fired artillery at insurgents sheltering in scrub across the valley. Smoke blotted the sky as the soldiers set ablaze houses once used by the Taliban to hide caches of heavy weapons.

In the Makeen bazaar, where the former leader of the Pakistani militants, Baitullah Mehsud, was once king, the army has flattened the jerry-built stores, including the ice cream parlor, scotching any idea of easy return.

Here in the heartland of the Pakistani Taliban, the army has fought for five months to claw back territory from its indigenous enemy. A rare trip under military escort revealed that the battle had turned into a grinding test of wills with no neat resolution in sight.

The Pakistani Army has, at least for the moment, gained the upper hand by taking the war to the Taliban in these barren mountains rather than retreating behind successive peace deals, as it once did. But it is not claiming victory.

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