Taliban Capture 30 Pakistani Police In Swat Valley

Now, before I'm too hard on the ineptness of the Pakistani security forces and their operations in Pakistan's Swat Valley, I must point out that they did kill over 50 Taliban across the area late Monday through Tuesday - course this AFP article here at Breitbart buries that little piece of info into the middle of the article. But the real kicker is that a police station was surrounded by Taliban and when the Pakistani security forces relaxed on the siege, the Taliban got into the police station, captured 30 police, and then blew up the building. Here's some of the details:

Taliban militants kidnapped 30 Pakistani policemen after a punishing day-long siege, in an embarrassing blow Wednesday for the army battling to win back control of the Swat valley.
The abduction, carried out at night when police and army reinforcements had suspended efforts to break the siege, underscores the huge challenges facing the security services.

Thousands of Taliban besieged a police station in the area of Shamozai on Tuesday. The army was mobilised to rescue the police and break the circle of rebels, security officials said.
Clashes continued throughout the day but as dusk fell, the operation was suspended. Then, overnight, the Taliban broke into the office, kidnapped the officers and blew up the building, said Swat police chief Dilawar Khan.
Khan said the rebels kidnapped 30 policemen.

Can this article be right?! "Thousands" of Taliban??!! That's pretty hard to believe in this compacted area of the Swat Valley and one has to wonder, if you have "thousands" of Taliban congregated in one area, why in the sam hell weren't the Pakistanis dropping bombs like mad on these guys?!

At the same time, I'm not going to be totally critical of this in that after the Pakistanis moved a good number of forces to the India border a number of weeks ago, there was some fear that all operations in the NW Tribal provinces (including Swat) would be halted - at least that didn't happen. But at the same time, now we have to go through the nightmare of the Taliban making demands for the release of these policemen - usually Pakistan caves 100% to any of those demands.

Taliban kidnap 30 Pakistani policemen

Taliban militants kidnapped 30 Pakistani policemen after a punishing day-long siege, in an embarrassing blow Wednesday for the army battling to win back control of the Swat valley.
The abduction, carried out at night when police and army reinforcements had suspended efforts to break the siege, underscores the huge challenges facing the security services.
Despite a wave of government offensives, the military has failed to impose its authority on the valley, a scenic former holiday region near the border with Afghanistan.
Thousands of Taliban besieged a police station in the area of Shamozai on Tuesday. The army was mobilised to rescue the police and break the circle of rebels, security officials said.
Clashes continued throughout the day but as dusk fell, the operation was suspended. Then, overnight, the Taliban broke into the office, kidnapped the officers and blew up the building, said Swat police chief Dilawar Khan.
Khan said the rebels kidnapped 30 policemen.
A Pakistani intelligence official based in the northwest city of Peshawar said that four paramilitary and police officers had been wounded in clashes with Taliban militants at the station.
Until two years ago, Swat was a jewel in the crown of Pakistani tourism, frequented by foreign and local holiday-makers escaping to the mountains for skiing in winter or more refreshing climes in the punishing heat of summer.
But the area descended into chaos in mid-2007 after radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah embarked on a terrifying campaign to enforce a Taliban-style Sharia law, prompting thousands of people to flee.
Pakistan, under massive Western pressure to clamp down on extremists, has stepped up its attempts to wrest back control of the valley.
Thousands of civilians have fled the area, which locals say has fallen to the insurgents.
In a related development, security and intelligence officials said that 50 militants were killed in military operations across the area from late Monday to Tuesday.
The death tolls are impossible to verify independently with the sprawling region effectively sealed off from the outside world.
Analysts believe the military is inadequately equipped to wage a successful counter-insurgency operation against militants who often melt seamlessly into the populace, while civilians are frequent victims of offensives.