Pakistan troops, Taliban fight street battle: army

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani soldiers were fighting intense street battles on Wednesday as they pushed into a major Taliban base in the militants' South Waziristan stronghold, the military said.

The army launched an offensive on October 17 aimed at rooting out and defeating Pakistani Taliban militants in the lawless ethnic Pashtun region on the Afghan border.

Fighting has intensified in recent days after security forces zeroed in on three main militant bases -- Sararogha, Makeen and Ladha -- in their three-pronged offensive.

Soldiers had captured a "major part" of Sararogha and had also stormed into Ladha, the military said.

"Security forces entered into the important stronghold of terrorists, the town of Ladha. Intense fighting is taking place in the streets," the military said in a statement.

South Waziristan' rugged landscape of barren mountains and hidden ravines has become a global center of Islamist militancy and many foreign al Qaeda fighters are believed to be based there, along with thousands of Pakistani insurgents.

The militants are being squeezed out of their strongholds but have retaliated by stepping up bomb attacks on urban targets.

Security officials say the militants' "command and control structure" is in the three bases and they expect stiff resistance from Taliban defenders.

The army said at the weekend that government forces had converged on Makeen from three directions.

BOMB ATTACKS

The fall of the bases would be a major setback for the Taliban but security analysts say the militants could step up attacks in towns and cities to put pressure on the government and try to sap its resolve.

More than 100 people, most of them women, were killed in a car-bomb attack in a market in the northwestern city of Peshawar last week, the deadliest attack in the country in two years.

Thirty-five people were killed in a suicide attack bomb outside a bank in the city of Rawalpindi on Monday.

The military said on Wednesday afternoon 30 militants had been killed in South Waziristan in the previous 24 hours, taking their death toll to 394 in the 19 days of fighting.

Thirty-nine soldiers have been killed in the offensive, according to military figures, though there has been no independent verification of casualties as reporters and other investigators are not allowed into the war zone.

The army offensive is closely watched by the United States and other powers embroiled in neighboring Afghanistan as the border area has become a sanctuary for insurgents from both countries.

An opinion poll released on Tuesday showed a majority of Pakistanis supported the offensive in South Waziristan, although more blamed the United States for the violence than blamed the Taliban.

Many Pakistanis are suspicious of the government's support for the U.S-led global campaign against militancy and many have long opposed military action against Islamists.

But political analysts say the numerous bomb attacks in towns and cities over recent months have convinced many that action is necessary.

(Editing by Robert Birsel)