Army concludes 'successful' South Waziristan operation

Army claims to have found IEDs rigged to copies of the Holy Quran in cleanup of Janata Valley in S Waziristan.

PESHAWAR: Pakistan Army has successfully completed its Tri Star operation in Janata Valley of South Waziristan Agency to flush out terrorists.

An ISPR press release on Tuesday said that the operation was successfully completed and security forces gained full control of Janata Valley inflicting heavy causalities on terrorists and capturing large caches of arms and ammunition.

The operation was launched on July 13, 2011 in Janata Valley where terrorists had occupied surrounding heights ranging from 4000 to 8000 feet, made sanctuaries, training centers from which they used to operate deep South for terrorist activities, planting improvised explosive devises, fire raids, ambushes.

To eradicate the terrorists, a two pronged operation was launched in 28 square kilometre area.  A search operation found IEDs planted in Holy Qurans by the terrorists, pointing to the fact that the terrorists were oblivious to Islamic values and would indulge in all sorts of practices to achieve their heinous objectives since they did not hesitate to degrade the Holy Book.

During the operation a number of terrorists were killed, whereas three key terrorists were captured alive.

Besides destroying terrorists sanctuaries huge cache of arms, ammunition were recovered including two 75mm recoilless rifles, five 12.7 mm guns, one 82 mm Mortar, one missile launcher with two Missiles, fourteen 127mm Rockets and 50,000 rounds of various calibers.

Security forces also defused 16 IEDs and destroyed propaganda material being used by miscreants.