House after house flicks by hundreds of feet beneath a military helicopter, many distinguished by one arresting feature: their roofs have been removed by the army to allow an “aerial view” of militants who may take refuge there.
South Waziristan was once a stronghold of the Pakistani Taliban, where the extremists operated with impunity, but the military says the region in the country’s mountainous northwest has been cleared of its last militant stronghold.
Now the district, part of Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the border with Afghanistan, is welcoming thousands of displaced families back to their homes, many of which no longer offer shelter.
Some were damaged by weather, said a military official who flew with media on the army-controlled helicopter trip earlier this month over the towns of Makeen, ladha and Kanigurm.