Pakistan bombs Taliban killing leader

CNN:

An airstrike by Pakistani fighter jets killed more than 30 Taliban fighters, including an alleged high-ranking Taliban commander, a government spokesman said Saturday.

The military called in the fighter jets Friday to support Pakistani army ground troops in the violence-plagued northwest after they were caught in a clash with Taliban fighters, the spokesman said.

...

This is good news on several levels. One of the recent aid packages to Pakistan was to upgrade some of their F-16 fighters so they would be more effective in taking on the insurgents. It appears that they are now engaged in that effort.

They are drawing also on the tactics that have been effective for US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. This usually involves isolating Taliban units or getting in fire fights with them that allows our forces to fix their position and destroy them with air strikes.

So far the only answer that the Taliban has to this tactic is to claim that the attacks kill civilians.

If the Pakistan military aggressively goes after the Taliban in this manner it will make it much more difficult for the enemy to operate on either side of the border.

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