PESHAWAR: The army said on Friday it had successfully completed the preliminary phase of the operation in Shawal and it was now dominating all peaks around the valley in North Waziristan, ahead of the final push to flush out militants from their last redoubt near the Afghan border.

The statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations came the day it was announced that 200 displaced families were returning to Mirali. In the second phase of the repatriation, 414 families of the Edak tribe have so far returned to Mirali sub-district. The families were escorted by army troops.

The Fata Disaster Management Authority said the process of repatriation would continue during the month of Ramazan. The Edak tribe was the last to leave North Waziristan and is the first to return.

“We are now ready to move in,” a senior security official said, adding: “We are now dominating all the mountain ridges around Shawal. This will be the last phase of Operation Zarb-i-Azb.”

The military which remained stuck in Dattakhel, 55km west of North Waziristan’s regional headquarters of Miramshah, has gained ground and moved closer to the thickly-forested valley.

Like Tirah, this will be the first time troops will be moving into Shawal, an area infested with local and foreign militants who have fled from Miramshah and Mirali.

According to ISPR, Army Chief Gen Raheel Sharif visited combat areas in North Waziristan on Friday and commended professionalism, sacrifices and high morale of troops who had taken part in the first round of Shawal operation.

The military earlier announced that it had successfully completed the Operation Khyber-II, flushing out both local and foreign militants from Khyber Agency, adjacent to Peshawar, and securing important positions.

According to ISPR, Gen Raheel was briefed by the formation commander on the progress of Zarb-i-Azb and future plans to cleanse the remaining pockets in Shawal of terrorists.

Zarb-i-Azb was launched in June last year and the army claimed that 90 per cent area of the troubled tribal region had been cleared. The repatriation of internally displaced persons to the cleared areas is under way.

The army chief praised the special integrated teams which had carried out intelligence-based operations in urban areas and severed the links between terrorists’ sanctuaries in remote areas and their sleeper cells in cities and directed that these operations be continued to apprehend all terrorists and their facilitators and financiers without any discrimination and irrespective of the cost.

“We will not stop unless we achieve our end objective of a terror-free Pakistan,” the ISPR quoted Gen Raheel as saying.

The army chief also visited Wana in South Waziristan where he was briefed on the ongoing rehabilitation work and its effects on the social landscape of the area, particularly the relief brought by troops to the residents of these regions.

Commending the noteworthy achievement of completing numerous small-scale and mega projects, the army chief stressed the importance of capitalising on operational gains and bring lasting peace and prosperity to the region.

Acknowledging the hardship faced by the IDPs and sacrifices rendered by them, he called upon all stakeholders to ensure displaced persons’ speedy and dignified return to better built and rehabilitated areas for a long-term stability in the country’s bordering regions. He reiterated that the army would fully assist in timely completion of all development projects.

On his arrival in Miramshah, the army chief was received by Corps Commander Peshawar Lt Gen Hidayatur Rehman.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2015

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