KHYBER: With Tirah residents continuing to vacate houses, a number of displaced persons have expressed reservations about the planned military operation against militants in the restive valley here.

Many internally displaced persons told Dawn that militants fled the valley with the start of evacuation late Dec as security forces vowed to carry out a full-scale operation against militants in Tirah.

They said that residents were considered a ‘shield’ by terrorist groups operating in the valley as they would take refuge in houses in case of intelligence-based operations.

“Militants used to barge into houses both at night and in the daytime to demand meal and protection,” a person displaced from Malakdinkhel told Dawn on arrival in Bara.

Fear return of terrorists after completion of action

Requesting anonymity due to sensitivity of the matter, he said that though he didn’t see militants move out of Tirah, his relatives and neighbours insisted that a number of armed men affiliated with proscribed groups suddenly “vanished” from their localities after residents began vacating their houses.

“I wonder who the security forces will launch a military operation against when terrorists have relocated to safer places in Tirah or outside,” he said.

The IDP said that it would be wishful thinking on part of the operation planners to expect that militants would act as sitting ducks and wait for security forces to come and shoot them while residents were away.

“Militant groups have their own strategy and operate in accordance with a well thought-out strategy,” he said.

The displaced person said security forces might find themselves groping in the dark after the evacuation was completed by the end of January while militants, too, would mostly go “underground”.

He said that in the beginning, militants tried to stop residents from vacating their houses but when they failed, they started depriving them of valuable belongings, which even included textbooks and school certificates of students.

Taj Mohammad Kamarkhel, whose family was forced to vacate their house along with over 450 other families in November 2023, expressed doubts about the security forces completing the planned military operation by the end of April.

He said that when residents were ordered to leave houses and that, too, without giving them the status of IDP in November 2023, they were told that the operation would be concluded in three months’ time and they would be allowed to return to their homes.

“Now it’s over two years that we are left high and dry with no return plan in sight while the remaining Tirah families, too, are asked to leave their houses in this harsh winter,” he lamented.

The IDP added that neither the conducting of the military operation nor its conclusion seemed a reality.

Accompanied by other displaced persons at a registration centre in Bara, he said the harsh Tirah winter could prove a “hurdle” to a full-fledged military operation as mobility of security forces could be hampered by intense cold weather.

Shabbir Ahmad, a young resident of Sarrai Kandao, believed that IBOs with the migration of residents would have been a better strategy to effectively tackle the monster of terrorism in Tirah while eliminating most terrorists with effective coordination and liaison with residents and minimising any chances of collateral damage.

He said that people of Tirah had little confidence in the success of the planned military operation as they feared that terrorists would re-enter the valley once the operation was completed and the IDPs were allowed to go back to their homes.

“The same happened in Upper Bara in 2022 when a majority of the returned families found their houses occupied in advance by the armed militants while they received little or no help from the government despite repeated appeals for safety,” he said.

Published in Dawn, January 22nd, 2026