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Government goes afterTalibanchief

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The Associated Press

Published: June 15, 2009

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan ordered its army to go after the country's top Taliban commander, a feared militant whose remote stronghold could prove a difficult test for troops but whose demise would be a major blow to the insurgencies here and in Afghanistan.

The announcement Sunday of the operation against Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan, rumored for weeks, came hours after a suspected U.S. missile strike killed five alleged militants there. The move will likely please Washington, which considers the tribal region a particularly troublesome hideout for al-Qaida and Taliban fighters implicated in attacks on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.

Sunday, a bomb rocked a market in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan, with at least nine reported dead, while officials said security forces killed at least 20 militants in a tribal area supposedly cleared of insurgents months ago.

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