Taliban Expands Operations Into Pakistan & East Africa


Pakistani officials launched a military operation in Buner Province today after the Taliban staged a withdrawal after invading the region last week.
The Daily Times reported:

Security forces backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships launched a new operation in Buner district near the Swat valley on Tuesday, bombing suspected Taliban hideouts in Kalil, Shera Turf, and Kandao areas…

Nearly 300 Taliban entered Buner from April 2 to 4 and began to terrorise the locals, in violation of the Swat deal, Gen Abbas said. “The government warned the militants but they refused to listen and staged only a symbolic withdrawal. They government was left with no option expect to use force,” he said.

According to several news agencies, he said it would take up to a week to clear an estimated 500 Taliban from Buner.

But, the Taliban is not just moving south into Buner.
There are also reports that the Taliban is moving into East Africa.
The Daily Times reported:

Evidence is growing that Taliban are filtering out of havens along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and into East Africa, bringing sophisticated terror tactics including suicide attacks.

The alarming shift, according to US military and counterterror officials, fuels worries that Somalia increasingly is on a path to become the next Afghanistan, a sanctuary where Al Qaeda-linked groups could train and plan their attacks against the West.

So far, officials say the number of foreign fighters who had moved from southwest Asia and the Pak-Afghan border region to the Horn of Africa was small, perhaps two to three dozen.

A similarly small cell of plotters was responsible for the devastating 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. And the cluster of extremists now believed to be operating inside East Africa could pass on sophisticated training and attack techniques gleaned after seven years at war against the US and allies in Iraq and Afghanistan, US officials said.

“There is a level of activity that is troubling, disturbing,” US Gen William “Kip” Ward, head of US Africa Command, told AP, adding that American officials already were seeing extremist factions in East Africa sharing information and techniques.

Let’s hope these are the moderate Taliban members we are talking about here.

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Jim Hoft is the founder and editor of The Gateway Pundit, one of the top conservative news outlets in America. Jim was awarded the Reed Irvine Accuracy in Media Award in 2013 and is the proud recipient of the Breitbart Award for Excellence in Online Journalism from the Americans for Prosperity Foundation in May 2016. In 2023, The Gateway Pundit received the Most Trusted Print Media Award at the American Liberty Awards.

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