Pakistanis pay high price for anti-militant drive

By Faris Ali

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's decision to hunt down Taliban militants has public backing but rising bloodshed is stoking doubt the military option will be worth the cost outside the battlefield.

In and around Peshawar, ordinary people have paid a heavy price for the government's decision to assault the Pakistani Taliban's stronghold in South Waziristan along the Afghanistan border starting on Oct. 17.

"What was my son's crime?," asked Zar Dil Khan, whose teenage son was killed along with more than 100 others in a bomb blast in Peshawar last month. "He wasn't infidel or American, then why he was killed?"

Far from being bowed by the attack, the grieving Khan said the militants must pay: "If they're killing people and not listening to anyone then of course, the government has got to fight them out."

Peshawar is the capital of the North West Frontier Province, a mountainous, rugged land squarely at the centre of global Islamist militancy because its South Waziristan region is a militant stronghold that has given Afghan fighters sanctuary.

Hundreds have died in retaliatory militant attacks across the country since the South Waziristan assault began. Reflecting the national unease, brokers say the ensuing insecurity has driven the Karachi Stock Exchange down by 6 percent since it began.

"Operations are not a solution. It's an unending war," trader Abdul Majid Khan said. "It's spreading further chaos in our society. You have got to hold talks with them. You have got to assure them you're sincere and not an American stooge."