When we last left off, Operation Rah-I-Najat was entering its 3rd week and the Pakistani army was certainly on the move. The Pakistani Taliban failed to halt the army and Frontier Corps, who seem to have knocked the militants on their heels and are beating them back towards the ropes.
In short, the Pakistani Taliban and its allies are being meticulously routed in the area controlled by the Mehsud tribe.
The city of Kaniguram, a stronghold of the notorious Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, has fallen to the army. So has the Taliban stronghold of Sararougha. So has Laddah. These were places that the Taliban either had to hold onto, or had to at least bloody the Pakistani military. They didn't.
The militants are fleeing the cross-hairs of the Pakistani army, and they will end up leaving themselves exposed to the coming winter and the relentless commitment of a nation fed-up with the militants in control of the Mehsud tribe.
A speech by Hakimullah Mehsud, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, was intercepted by Pakistani intelligence forces who have been beefed up by American assistance. A recording of the intercepted message was played for the media, and it is the kind of speech that tells you everything you need to know.
Mr. Hakimullah Mehsud;
"Remember this is the commandment of God that once fighting starts with the enemy, you cannot leave the battlefield without permission from your commander, and don't look for excuses to run away from the fighting," Hakimullah Mehsud told his followers in a speech Tuesday broadcast over a wireless radio network. Of those who do run away, he warned, "Such people will go to hell."
The Taliban is still claiming to have lost less than a dozen militants and are "strategically retreating". Retreating into what? The oh-so-hospitable mountains that will soon be covered by not only snow but the other charms of winter? Into the last-stronghold of Makeen where they will make easy targets? They are quickly running out of room to run to.
The Pakistani army has all of the momentum and the Pakistani Taliban seems too rattled to be able to stop them.