Operation Black Thunderstorm was a military operation that commenced on 26 April 2009, conducted by the Pakistan Army, with the aim of retaking Buner, Lower Dir, Swat and Shangla districts from the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan after the militants took control of them since the start of the year.
Background A temporary ceasefire was called in the Malakand region on 16 February 2009. The provincial government agreed to allow the implementation of Sharia in the region once violence had stopped. Sufi Muhammad traveled to Swat to discuss peace with Fazlullah and his followers, who agreed to observe the ceasefire. On 24 February 2009 Muslim Khan, spokesperson of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) publicly announced that his group would observe an indefinite ceasefire. The ANP, the governing party of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa sent the bill to President Asif Ali Zardari, who delayed signing it into law until "the writ of the government [had] been established." Soon after that the militants expanded their territory into other districts and by mid-April they took Buner, Lower Dir and Shangla. With the Taliban takeover the militants came within of the capital of Pakistan, Islamabad. It was the closest that Taliban forces ever got to capturing the Pakistan capital, Islamabad. This raised the alarm among western countries, particularly the United States, that a collapse of the country and a Taliban takeover was playing out. The government was highly criticized for making peace deals with the militants. Therefore, the Pakistani government launched an operation in late April to retake all territory lost in the previous months.
Operation
Attack on Lower Dir Operation Toar Tander-I (Black Thunderstorm-I) began in Lower Dir as the Frontier Corps (FC) killed 26 Taliban, including key commanders Maulana Shahid and Qari Quraish.
The operation was launched on 26 April, after the Taliban, in violation of the peace agreement, attacked security forces and government officials and closed roads for the movement of government and FC convoys. In some villages, the Taliban had looted shops and tortured villagers to gain their support, adding that a jirga had also been forced to back them.
Officials said the forces were gaining ground against the Taliban and their hideouts in Kalkot, Islam Dara and Hoshyari Dara were targeted. Paramilitary troops and helicopter gunships bombed suspected Taliban bases during the operation. Eight soldiers and around 50 militants were killed in two days of fighting. The operation mostly cleared the Lower Dir district of Taliban forces by 28 April. However, the military was still fighting with pockets of militant resistance in the coming weeks.
Buner Assault The second phase of the operation started the same day as fighting in Lower Dir was dying down. The Pakistani Taliban had entered the town of Buner that was outside the Swat region and closer to the capital of Islamabad, had closed a local shrine and captured local policemen in defiance of the state and a prior peace agreement with the government. The Pakistan Army's push to retake control of Buner, which was only away from the capital city Islamabad, started. Special Forces members belonging to Pakistan Army's 50th Airborne Division and the Pakistan Army's Special Services Group swarmed down ropes from helicopters to enter the town of Daggar, which lies in the strategically important Buna valley to the northwest of Islamabad, killing nearly 50 militants. Pakistan Army leaders hoped to trap about 500 militants in between the 50th Airborne forces and SSG Division's teams that were advancing on the ground towards Taliban positions at the valley's entrance. The fate of 75 police officers taken hostage by the Taliban in Buner the previous night remained unclear. 18 were rescued the next day but the others were still prisoners. The troops belonging to 50th Airborne Division jumped first on 30 April in Buner City between 00:48 and 01:40. The Pakistan Air Force's SS Wing's 1st SOS Squadron flew the No. 6 Squadron Globe Trotters transport aircraft where hundreds of additional members of 50th Airborne Division, Special Services Group - Navy, 4th SOS Squadron, 140th Expeditionary Marines Battalion and the 1st Commando Yildiram Battalion, SSG jumped off in the dark night of 31 April, and landed in different areas of Buner where they had taken the strategic positions. The battle between the Pakistani Air Force and Taliban forces ended when the Taliban had lost a large number of their men and suffered heavy human casualties caused by the Airborne Forces of Pakistan Armed Forces.
The operation in Daggar came on the third day of the Army's offensive to roll back the Taliban advance that had caused concern not just in Islamabad – which is just 65 miles away – but also in Washington. Major General Athar Abbas, a military spokesman, told reporters in Rawalpindi that the Army and Frontier Corps paramilitary units launched the operation in Buner district, building on a several-day offensive in the region. Abbas said an estimated 450 to 500 Taliban are believed active in Buner, many believed to be engaged in "criminal activities."
The US had been repeatedly pressing the Pakistan government to take action, fearful that the militants were gaining too much ground and might even use Buner as a bridgehead for an attack on Islamabad.
On 2 May, another 10 soldiers were captured in Buner. The military confirmed that some 87 militants and four soldiers had been killed in fighting in the district between 28 April and 4 May. The military also stated that its troops were confronted during the fighting with wave attacks of suicide car-bombers. At least 27 suicide bombers were killed in the fighting. By 5 May, troops started to push back the Taliban militants in Buner.
Operation Rah-e-Rast
On 5 May, the third phase of the operation started as airborne troops boarded on C-130 transport aircraft, jumped off and stormed the militant-held valley of Swat. The name of this sub-operation of Black Thunderstorm has been referred to as Operation Rah-e-Rast in Urdu . In more than a month of fighting, by 15, 30 June soldiers and 1,040 militants were killed. Militant fighters were holed up in the emerald mines and in the main town of Swat district, Mingora. The emerald mines were secured by the Army's 50th Airborne division by 7 May, but the militants were still holding their positions in Mingora and on a strategic hilltop overlooking the town. Meanwhile, on 7 May, in Lower Dir, which was previously declared clear of the Taliban by the military, militants overran a paramilitary fort, killing three paramilitary soldiers and capturing 10 policemen. On the midnight of 10 May, additional airborne troops with small teams of Pakistan Navy SEALs jumped off from C-130 transport aircraft, and attacked a Taliban hidden training camp at Banai Baba in Shangla district, which is just east from Swat. In the fighting at Banai Baba the military reported killing 150 militants for the loss of two soldiers. At the same time as the fighting in Shangla, some sporadic fighting was still continuing in Lower Dir where, over four days, 109 more militants were killed. Also, further west, in the Mohmand agency, a group of 300 militants attacked a military outpost; in the fighting that ensued 26 militants were killed and 14 soldiers were wounded. On 12 May, Pakistani SSG commandos were inserted by helicopters into the Piochar area, a rear-support base for the militants in the northern part of the Swat valley, to conduct search-and-destroy operations.
By 15 May, the Army claimed that Buner was finally completely cleared of Taliban forces, however artillery bombardment of Taliban positions in the hills was still ongoing. And it was reported that the Taliban were more dug in and in larger numbers in Buner than the military previously assumed. Meanwhile, the Pakistani military continued with their push up the Swat valley. As the military approached Mingora, the Taliban were digging in for a "bloody urban battle" against the Pakistani army's airborne forces in a hotly disputed city in the north-western part of the country. The Taliban began concentrating forces in Mingora - digging trenches, laying mines and taking positions on rooftops.
Stratfor, a private firm that describes itself as a global intelligence company, mentioned that it is not clear if the Pakistani military is trained and even equipped to go into a situation like that, adding that even the United States military "would have to think twice" about such an offensive. Pakistani military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas, who is the spokesman for Pakistan's military said "the military intends to drive the Taliban out of the contested area, even if the kind of fighting resembles that of the Battle of Stalingrad". He said that the whole resolve of the government and the military is to once and for all finish the Taliban from the Swat valley. The army has about 15,000 troops on the ground and is estimated that there are still over 5,000 Taliban fighters in the area.
On 17 May, heavy street fighting started in the towns of Kanju and Matta and the Army was slowly advancing towards Mingora. Also, a few days later fighting started in the area of the Takhtaband bridge for control of this crossing point. On 20 May, a key town in Buner was captured by the Army. The Army captured Sultanwas in fighting which, according to the military, killed one soldier and 80 militants, another nine soldiers were wounded. By 23 May, Kanju, Matta and the Takhtaband bridge had been secured by the military, but fighting was still going on in Takhtaband itself and the Buner and Dir districts, where nine more militants were killed. Meanwhile, the military was surrounding the main militant base in the Peochar Valley.
Battle for Mingora
On 23 May, the battle for the capital of Swat, Mingora, started as the small teams belonging to SSG Division accompanied with Army Rangers stormed the city. The Ranger and SSG Division's teams entered in the city from two different phases. The SSG Division's team at first entered the city from the air as they were parachuted. At the same time, the Army Rangers and additional SSG Division's teams entered the city as they were boarded on M113C and the APC Talha-B. Combat here was heavy, intense, and occurred in the streets. Taliban Fighters had dug themselves into bunkers built into hotels and government buildings. Pakistan's SSG and Army Rangers had fought the Taliban fighters hand-to-hand inside the buildings and hotels. On the first day of the tiring and long battle, fighting was mainly in the center of the city, at the central bus terminal and along the main road near the city's primary gateway. By the next day's early morning, the military captured several intersections and three squares; including Green Square, which had been known as "Bloody Intersection", because the Taliban were dumping bodies of people who they executed at that location. Intense fighting was going on in the Nawa Kilay neighbourhood and the western suburb of Qambar.
By 27 May, the military took control of 70 percent of the city, including the city's airport, and Taliban forces across Swat were in retreat, but fighting was still continuing. At the same time, in continuing battles in Lower Dir and Shangla, three more soldiers and eight militants were killed.
On 29 May, the Army cleared Aman Kot and the Technical Institute College on the Mingora-Kokarai road in Mingora. On the same day, the village of Peochar in the Peochar Valley, as well as the town of Bahrain in the north of Swat, had been taken by the military.