The government’s urgent push into cyberwarfare has set off a rush among the biggest military companies for billions of dollars in new defense contracts.
The exotic nature of the work, coupled with the deep recession, is enabling the companies to attract top young talent that once would have gone to Silicon Valley. And the race to develop weapons that defend against, or initiate, computer attacks has given rise to thousands of “hacker soldiers” within the Pentagon who can blend the new capabilities into the nation’s war planning.
Nearly all of the largest military companies — including Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and Raytheon — have major cyber contracts with the military and intelligence agencies.
The companies have been moving quickly to lock up the relatively small number of experts with the training and creativity to block the attacks and design countermeasures. They have been buying smaller firms, financing academic research and running advertisements for “cyberninjas” at a time when other industries are shedding workers.
The changes are manifesting themselves in highly classified laboratories, where computer geeks in their 20s like to joke that they are hackers with security clearances.
At a Raytheon facility here south of the Kennedy Space Center, a hub of innovation in an earlier era, rock music blares and empty cans of Mountain Dew pile up as engineers create tools to protect the Pentagon’s computers and crack into the networks of countries that could become adversaries. Prizes like cappuccino machines and stacks of cash spur them on, and a gong heralds each major breakthrough.
The young engineers represent the new face of a war that President Obama described Friday as “one of the most serious economic and national security challenges we face as a nation.” The president said he would appoint a senior White House official to oversee the nation’s cybersecurity strategies.
Computer experts say the government is behind the curve in sealing off its networks from threats that are growing more persistent and sophisticated, with thousands of intrusions each day from organized criminals and legions of hackers for nations including Russia and China.
“Everybody’s attacking everybody,” said Scott Chase, a 30-year-old computer engineer who helps run the Raytheon unit here.
Mr. Chase, who wears his hair in a ponytail, and Terry Gillette, a 53-year-old former rocket engineer, ran SI Government Solutions before selling the company to Raytheon last year as the boom in the military’s cyberoperations accelerated.
The operation — tucked into several unmarked buildings behind an insurance office and a dentist’s office — is doing some of the most cutting-edge work, both in identifying weaknesses in Pentagon networks and in creating weapons for potential attacks.
Daniel D. Allen, who oversees work on intelligence systems for Northrop Grumman, estimated that federal spending on computer security now totals $10 billion each year, including classified programs. That is just a fraction of the government’s spending on weapons systems. But industry officials expect it to rise rapidly.
The military contractors are now in the enviable position of turning what they learned out of necessity — protecting the sensitive Pentagon data that sits on their own computers — into a lucrative business that could replace some of the revenue lost from cancellations of conventional weapons systems.
Executives at Lockheed Martin, which has long been the government’s largest information-technology contractor, also see the demand for greater computer security spreading to energy and health care agencies and the rest of the nation’s critical infrastructure. But for now, most companies remain focused on the national-security arena, where the hottest efforts involve anticipating how an enemy might attack and developing the resources to strike back.
Though even the existence of research on cyberweapons was once highly classified, the Air Force plans this year to award the first publicly announced contract for developing tools to break into enemy computers. The companies are also teaming up to build a National Cyber Range, a model of the Internet for testing advanced techniques.
Military experts said Northrop Grumman and General Dynamics, which have long been major players in the Pentagon’s security efforts, are leading the push into offensive cyberwarfare, along with the Raytheon unit. This involves finding vulnerabilities in other countries’ computer systems and developing software tools to exploit them, either to steal sensitive information or disable the networks.Mr. Chase and Mr. Gillette said the Raytheon unit, which has about 100 employees, grew out of a company they started with friends at Florida Institute of Technology that concentrated on helping software makers find flaws in their own products. Over the last several years, their focus shifted to the military and intelligence agencies, which wanted to use their analytic tools to detect vulnerabilities and intrusions previously unnoticed.
Like other contractors, the Raytheon teams set up “honey pots,” the equivalent of sting operations, to lure hackers into digital cul-de-sacs that mimic Pentagon Web sites. They then capture the attackers’ codes and create defenses for them.
And since most of the world’s computers run on the Windows or the Linux systems, their work has also provided a growing window into how to attack foreign networks in any cyberwar.
“It takes a nonconformist to excel at what we do,” said Mr. Gillette, a tanned surfing aficionado who looks like a 1950s hipster in his T-shirts with rolled-up sleeves.
The company, which would allow interviews with other employees only on the condition that their last names not be used because of security concerns, hired one of its top young workers, Dustin, after he won two major hacking contests and dropped out of college. “I always approach it like a game, and it’s been fun,” said Dustin, now 22.
Another engineer, known as Jolly, joined Raytheon in April after earning a master’s degree in computer security at DePaul University in Chicago. “You think defense contractors, and you think bureaucracy, and not necessarily a lot of interesting and challenging projects,” he said.
The Pentagon’s interest in cyberwarfare has reached “religious intensity,” said Daniel T. Kuehl, a military historian at the National Defense University. And the changes carry through to soldiers being trained to defend and attack computer and wireless networks out on the battlefield.
That shift can be seen in the remaking of organizations like the Association of Old Crows, a professional group that includes contractors and military personnel.
The Old Crows have deep roots in what has long been known as electronic warfare — the use of radar and radio technologies for jamming and deception.
But the financing for electronic warfare had slowed recently, prompting the Old Crows to set up a broader information-operations branch last year and establish a new trade journal to focus on cyberwarfare.
The career of Joel Harding, the director of the group’s Information Operations Institute, exemplifies the increasing role that computing and the Internet are playing in the military.
A 20-year veteran of military intelligence, Mr. Harding shifted in 1996 into one of the earliest commands that studied government-sponsored computer hacker programs. After leaving the military, he took a job as an analyst at SAIC, a large contractor developing computer applications for military and intelligence agencies.
Mr. Harding estimates that there are now 3,000 to 5,000 information operations specialists in the military and 50,000 to 70,000 soldiers involved in general computer operations. Adding specialists in electronic warfare, deception and other areas could bring the total number of information operations personnel to as many as 88,700, he said.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
'I'm only 16. They gave me a rifle. It was heavy. They said we had to go forward. If we came back, they would shoot us'
Darchiga Kuken was sheltering in a bunker in the Mullaitivu area when a group of about 20 Tamil Tiger soldiers arrived and demanded that she went with them.
"I was sick with chicken pox. My mother and father were screaming and crying, saying that I was sick and pleading with them not to take me," she said. The men went away. And then at 5pm on 14 March they came back. They called me to come out and then they grabbed me and put me in a jeep. I started to cry. I was shouting: 'Mother, father, help me.' "
The 16-year-old is now being held in what the government describes as a "rehabilitation centre", a jungle camp built on a hillside outside the town of Ambepusse in the south of the country. Here children like her, who were forced to fight on the front line in the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka, gave the Observer compelling evidence of war crimes committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The camp currently houses 95 children, with another 200 on their way from internment camps around the town of Vavuniya in the north of the country.
Despite international concerns over the treatment of LTTE suspects, the children appeared to be well treated and were able to speak freely when the Observer visited the camp on Thursday. The most distressing sight was a young boy howling in pain on the floor of one of the huts; his friends said that he had recently arrived and still had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his skull from the recent fighting.
The accounts of these boys and girls who surrendered to the Sri Lankan army were shocking. They say they were dragged screaming from their families and sent into action with only a few days of basic training. The older members of the LTTE warned them to keep firing and advancing, or they would be shot by their own side from behind.
Those who did try to escape said they were fired on by their own side. Children who were recaptured had their hair shaved off to mark them as deserters and boys were beaten.
Darchiga said she was shot in the stomach by the army two days after arriving on the front line, having been forced to pick up a rifle and go forward to fight. She said LTTE cadres left her bleeding for four hours before she received any medical treatment.
According to her testimony, the Tigers had warned every family that those children who could carry a weapon were expected to join up, regardless of age. Some as young as 11 and 12 had been taken, she said. "They told families that one child was enough. If they had five children, they would take four and leave just one."
She was taken to a training camp at Mullaivaikal, where nine days of basic military training were interrupted by frequent air attacks. On the morning of 24 March, she was sent to the front.
"I was scared and thought that I would die now and would never see my parents again. They had scared us and said we shouldn't sleep because the army would come and cut our throats."
She spent the first day hiding in a bunker, then she was shoved forwards because the senior Tiger cadres said they were running out of fighters. "They gave me a rifle. It was very heavy. They threatened us that we had to go forward and shoot; if we came back, they would shoot us themselves.
"I went a few hundred yards and hid behind a coconut tree. I saw the army coming and I was very scared and I was lying down trying to hide, but then they shot me in the stomach.
"I started screaming because of the pain, but the cadres told me to shut up because the army would hear me. They gave me a cloth to put on the wound. There was a lot of blood. It was four hours before they took me to the hospital at Matalan."
On 13 April she escaped and ran back to her family. The Tigers were looking for deserters, she said. "If they caught them, they shaved their hair off and sent them back to the front line." Boys also received a beating.
She finally managed to escape with a group of civilians, but only after the Tigers had fired on them. She was separated from her family, who were sent to the internment camps at Vavuniya, and taken to a court, which ordered her to be detained at Ambepusse for a year - the standard treatment for those who confess to LTTE membership, even if they had been coerced.
Ravindram Vajeevan, 17, said he arrived at Ambepusse on 9 April after escaping from the Tigers four days earlier. He had a large scar on his left arm where he had been shot by his former comrades as he ran away.
He had been taken from his family in Mullaitivu on 29 March, as fighting raged around the shrinking no-fire zone and LTTE numbers dwindled. A large group of men arrived at the house, he said, and dragged him from the bunker where he had been sheltering.
"They hit me and my mother was crying and I was crying, but they said I had to go to fight. My neighbours tried to stop them, but they said they would shoot. Then they fired in the air," he said.
He was taken to a camp with about 70 other young boys and taught how to make a bunker, how to handle a rifle, how to escape from an ambush and how to stage an attack. They were told that if they did not fight they would be shot from behind, he said. On the fifth day, he escaped.
"In the beginning, the LTTE were fighting for the Tamils, but in the end they were just fighting for themselves," he said.
Thambirasa Jagadiswary, 20, and her brother Thambirasa Thisanandan, 17, were reunited at Ambepusse after the the Tigers took them from their family. Jagadiswary was taken in June 2008 and drafted into a mortar unit before being captured; her brother was dragooned in February this year. He had spent 15 days with the rebels before escaping and surrendering.
Afterwards he was taken to Vavuniya with his parents. "They told us there that those who were in the LTTE should register, so I did," he said. "Then they told me they would separate us from our parents."
"I was talking with my friends when they brought him in," his sister said. "All of a sudden I saw my brother and I started crying and shouting and hugging him." Their mother remains in the internment camp at Menik Farm.
These teenagers' revelations come days after the UN human rights council rejected a call for an investigation into allegations of war crimes by both sides during the 26-year conflict and accepted an alternative Sri Lankan government resolution describing the conflict as a "domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference". The Sri Lankan military has also been accused of committing war crimes by firing on civilians.
Among the traumatised and unwilling child soldiers of the Tamil Tigers, there is just a desire for normality to return.
"I was one year with the LTTE and I must be one year here," said Jagadiswary. "Now I would just like to find my mother and get on with my life."
"I was sick with chicken pox. My mother and father were screaming and crying, saying that I was sick and pleading with them not to take me," she said. The men went away. And then at 5pm on 14 March they came back. They called me to come out and then they grabbed me and put me in a jeep. I started to cry. I was shouting: 'Mother, father, help me.' "
The 16-year-old is now being held in what the government describes as a "rehabilitation centre", a jungle camp built on a hillside outside the town of Ambepusse in the south of the country. Here children like her, who were forced to fight on the front line in the final stages of the war in Sri Lanka, gave the Observer compelling evidence of war crimes committed by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE).
The camp currently houses 95 children, with another 200 on their way from internment camps around the town of Vavuniya in the north of the country.
Despite international concerns over the treatment of LTTE suspects, the children appeared to be well treated and were able to speak freely when the Observer visited the camp on Thursday. The most distressing sight was a young boy howling in pain on the floor of one of the huts; his friends said that he had recently arrived and still had a piece of shrapnel lodged in his skull from the recent fighting.
The accounts of these boys and girls who surrendered to the Sri Lankan army were shocking. They say they were dragged screaming from their families and sent into action with only a few days of basic training. The older members of the LTTE warned them to keep firing and advancing, or they would be shot by their own side from behind.
Those who did try to escape said they were fired on by their own side. Children who were recaptured had their hair shaved off to mark them as deserters and boys were beaten.
Darchiga said she was shot in the stomach by the army two days after arriving on the front line, having been forced to pick up a rifle and go forward to fight. She said LTTE cadres left her bleeding for four hours before she received any medical treatment.
According to her testimony, the Tigers had warned every family that those children who could carry a weapon were expected to join up, regardless of age. Some as young as 11 and 12 had been taken, she said. "They told families that one child was enough. If they had five children, they would take four and leave just one."
She was taken to a training camp at Mullaivaikal, where nine days of basic military training were interrupted by frequent air attacks. On the morning of 24 March, she was sent to the front.
"I was scared and thought that I would die now and would never see my parents again. They had scared us and said we shouldn't sleep because the army would come and cut our throats."
She spent the first day hiding in a bunker, then she was shoved forwards because the senior Tiger cadres said they were running out of fighters. "They gave me a rifle. It was very heavy. They threatened us that we had to go forward and shoot; if we came back, they would shoot us themselves.
"I went a few hundred yards and hid behind a coconut tree. I saw the army coming and I was very scared and I was lying down trying to hide, but then they shot me in the stomach.
"I started screaming because of the pain, but the cadres told me to shut up because the army would hear me. They gave me a cloth to put on the wound. There was a lot of blood. It was four hours before they took me to the hospital at Matalan."
On 13 April she escaped and ran back to her family. The Tigers were looking for deserters, she said. "If they caught them, they shaved their hair off and sent them back to the front line." Boys also received a beating.
She finally managed to escape with a group of civilians, but only after the Tigers had fired on them. She was separated from her family, who were sent to the internment camps at Vavuniya, and taken to a court, which ordered her to be detained at Ambepusse for a year - the standard treatment for those who confess to LTTE membership, even if they had been coerced.
Ravindram Vajeevan, 17, said he arrived at Ambepusse on 9 April after escaping from the Tigers four days earlier. He had a large scar on his left arm where he had been shot by his former comrades as he ran away.
He had been taken from his family in Mullaitivu on 29 March, as fighting raged around the shrinking no-fire zone and LTTE numbers dwindled. A large group of men arrived at the house, he said, and dragged him from the bunker where he had been sheltering.
"They hit me and my mother was crying and I was crying, but they said I had to go to fight. My neighbours tried to stop them, but they said they would shoot. Then they fired in the air," he said.
He was taken to a camp with about 70 other young boys and taught how to make a bunker, how to handle a rifle, how to escape from an ambush and how to stage an attack. They were told that if they did not fight they would be shot from behind, he said. On the fifth day, he escaped.
"In the beginning, the LTTE were fighting for the Tamils, but in the end they were just fighting for themselves," he said.
Thambirasa Jagadiswary, 20, and her brother Thambirasa Thisanandan, 17, were reunited at Ambepusse after the the Tigers took them from their family. Jagadiswary was taken in June 2008 and drafted into a mortar unit before being captured; her brother was dragooned in February this year. He had spent 15 days with the rebels before escaping and surrendering.
Afterwards he was taken to Vavuniya with his parents. "They told us there that those who were in the LTTE should register, so I did," he said. "Then they told me they would separate us from our parents."
"I was talking with my friends when they brought him in," his sister said. "All of a sudden I saw my brother and I started crying and shouting and hugging him." Their mother remains in the internment camp at Menik Farm.
These teenagers' revelations come days after the UN human rights council rejected a call for an investigation into allegations of war crimes by both sides during the 26-year conflict and accepted an alternative Sri Lankan government resolution describing the conflict as a "domestic matter that doesn't warrant outside interference". The Sri Lankan military has also been accused of committing war crimes by firing on civilians.
Among the traumatised and unwilling child soldiers of the Tamil Tigers, there is just a desire for normality to return.
"I was one year with the LTTE and I must be one year here," said Jagadiswary. "Now I would just like to find my mother and get on with my life."
800 Britons on waiting list for Swiss suicide clinic
Record numbers of Britons who are suffering from terminal illnesses are queueing up for assisted suicide at the controversial Swiss clinic Dignitas, the Observer can reveal.
Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.
The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.
On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.
The 34 Britons given what Dignitas calls a "provisional green light" to die have provided documentary evidence of their condition and been interviewed by both a doctor and Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, and satisfied them that they are mentally fit to make such a decision.
One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.
A further four British people failed to get Dignitas's permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.
Dignitas figures also show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the past 12 months.
The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.
The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.
The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives who have travelled have been questioned by police on their return. However, government law officers have already admitted that no one who goes abroad for that purpose is likely to face prosecution.
"It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years' imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."
Prominent peers with legal or medical backgrounds are backing the move, including Lib Dem barrister Lord Lester, Baroness Greengross, the former head of Age Concern England, and Lord (Naren) Patel, chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency.
If they win - and they are increasingly confident - it would force the government to take a view. It used parliamentary procedure to prevent voting in March on an identical amendment in the Commons, which had been proposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary until 2007.
Lesley Close, who travelled to Dignitas with her brother, John, in 2003 when he ended a life overshadowed by motor neurone disease, said: "More and more British people will be joining Dignitas and travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there.
"The interest in Dignitas among Britons underlines the case for reform of the law here. We need the same facility here [as Dignitas]. It's a perfectly rational and humane decision to end your life if you are suffering intolerably at the end of a terminal illness."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a new right to assisted dying, said: "These figures show that the situation in this country is forcing people into difficult and dangerous decisions - to go abroad for an assisted death, or ask their doctor or a relative to help them die, or to attempt suicide themselves, some of which end up being botched.
"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose to."
Almost 800 have taken the first step to taking their lives by becoming members of Dignitas, and 34 men and women, who feel their suffering has become unbearable, are ready to travel to Zurich and take a lethal drug overdose.
The tenfold increase in the number of Britons who have joined Dignitas since 2002 will raise questions about the law that bans assisted suicide in Britain.
On Tuesday, 46-year-old Debbie Purdy, who suffers from progressive multiple sclerosis, will go to the House of Lords, the UK's highest court, asking it to determine whether her husband Omar Puente will be prosecuted if he helps her to travel abroad to die.
The 34 Britons given what Dignitas calls a "provisional green light" to die have provided documentary evidence of their condition and been interviewed by both a doctor and Ludwig Minelli, the founder of Dignitas, and satisfied them that they are mentally fit to make such a decision.
One of the 34 is due to undertake an accompanied suicide very soon. Four have already secured fixed dates for their deaths, but adjourned them. The remaining 29 have not yet arranged a specific date.
A further four British people failed to get Dignitas's permission after the Swiss doctor who examines all applicants said they should not be helped, either because they did not have an incurable illness or were judged not of sound enough mind to reach such a decision.
Dignitas figures also show that 15 Britons took their lives there in 2003, 26 in 2006, eight in the first five months of 2008 and 23 in the past 12 months.
The disclosures will reopen the highly charged debate about euthanasia. This week, an influential group of peers, led by two former ministers in Tony Blair's cabinet, will seek to end what they see as the outdated and inhumane situation in which relatives or friends risk up to 14 years in prison if they travel with a loved one undertaking assisted dying overseas.
The peers - led by Lord Falconer, a former lord chancellor, and Baroness Jay, a former leader of the House of Lords - will table an amendment to the Coroners and Justice Bill in an attempt to lift the threat of prosecution from people in England and Wales who want to support someone in their final moments.
The 1961 Suicide Act criminalises anyone who aids, abets, counsels or procures someone else's suicide, and some relatives who have travelled have been questioned by police on their return. However, government law officers have already admitted that no one who goes abroad for that purpose is likely to face prosecution.
"It's a tragic anomaly that people who are giving a last loving assistance to a loved one find themselves under threat of 14 years' imprisonment if they do," Jay said last night. "Having made the very difficult decision to travel abroad to somewhere like Switzerland, where assisted dying is legal, someone would want the sort of support they would expect here from a husband, wife or loved one. The law in this area is a fudge and parliamentarians are lagging behind public opinion on this."
Prominent peers with legal or medical backgrounds are backing the move, including Lib Dem barrister Lord Lester, Baroness Greengross, the former head of Age Concern England, and Lord (Naren) Patel, chairman of the National Patient Safety Agency.
If they win - and they are increasingly confident - it would force the government to take a view. It used parliamentary procedure to prevent voting in March on an identical amendment in the Commons, which had been proposed by Patricia Hewitt, the health secretary until 2007.
Lesley Close, who travelled to Dignitas with her brother, John, in 2003 when he ended a life overshadowed by motor neurone disease, said: "More and more British people will be joining Dignitas and travelling to Switzerland to die because more people are aware of the compassionate and peaceful death you can achieve there.
"The interest in Dignitas among Britons underlines the case for reform of the law here. We need the same facility here [as Dignitas]. It's a perfectly rational and humane decision to end your life if you are suffering intolerably at the end of a terminal illness."
Sarah Wootton, chief executive of Dignity in Dying, which campaigns for a new right to assisted dying, said: "These figures show that the situation in this country is forcing people into difficult and dangerous decisions - to go abroad for an assisted death, or ask their doctor or a relative to help them die, or to attempt suicide themselves, some of which end up being botched.
"There is clearly a growing demand in this country for a well regulated, legal right for people with terminal illness, who are mentally competent, to end their life if they choose to."
Pakistan seeks 'hardcore' Taliban
The Pakistani army says it is preparing to flush "hardcore" Taliban rebels out of the Swat valley after regaining control of the main city, Mingora.
"We are going after the leadership and we are going to take care of all the militants in the valley," spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the BBC.
Clashes continued outside Mingora but its centre was under control, he said.
Essential services were being restored to the city, he added, which was home to 300,000 people before the fighting.
Doctors had arrived to re-open the main hospital, gas had been restored and mobile generators would help restore the water system, the general said.
But he suggested it would take at least two weeks to restore the electricity network. Local defence committees would be set up eventually to stop militants returning, he added.
With journalists barred from the area, it is impossible to verify the situation in the city independently.
Some 2.5 million people have fled their homes since military operations began in Swat more than a month ago.
'Better position'
"We have been able to block the major routes and the entries, exit points of the valley," said Gen Abbas.
"So we are in a better position to flush out, to eliminate the main militants, the hardcore militants of the valley."
Troops now have Charbagh, a Taliban stronghold 32km (20 miles) north of the valley, in their sights, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley reports.
Helicopters are said to be dropping leaflets advising residents to leave.
Soldiers continued to patrol Mingora's largely deserted streets on Saturday, securing neighbourhoods and checking houses for booby-traps.
Pakistan has increased its reward for the capture of the Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, to 50m rupees ($600,000).
The radical cleric is believed to be the architect of a two-year uprising in the valley aimed at enforcing Islamic law.
It is thought that the Taliban responded to the military campaign this week with a major suicide bomb attack on the country's second-biggest city, Lahore, as well as bombings in two other cities in the north-west.
The US is giving full backing to the Pakistani operations, which are linked to its own offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, our correspondent says.
"We are going after the leadership and we are going to take care of all the militants in the valley," spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas told the BBC.
Clashes continued outside Mingora but its centre was under control, he said.
Essential services were being restored to the city, he added, which was home to 300,000 people before the fighting.
Doctors had arrived to re-open the main hospital, gas had been restored and mobile generators would help restore the water system, the general said.
But he suggested it would take at least two weeks to restore the electricity network. Local defence committees would be set up eventually to stop militants returning, he added.
With journalists barred from the area, it is impossible to verify the situation in the city independently.
Some 2.5 million people have fled their homes since military operations began in Swat more than a month ago.
'Better position'
"We have been able to block the major routes and the entries, exit points of the valley," said Gen Abbas.
"So we are in a better position to flush out, to eliminate the main militants, the hardcore militants of the valley."
Troops now have Charbagh, a Taliban stronghold 32km (20 miles) north of the valley, in their sights, the BBC's Humphrey Hawksley reports.
Helicopters are said to be dropping leaflets advising residents to leave.
Soldiers continued to patrol Mingora's largely deserted streets on Saturday, securing neighbourhoods and checking houses for booby-traps.
Pakistan has increased its reward for the capture of the Taliban leader in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, to 50m rupees ($600,000).
The radical cleric is believed to be the architect of a two-year uprising in the valley aimed at enforcing Islamic law.
It is thought that the Taliban responded to the military campaign this week with a major suicide bomb attack on the country's second-biggest city, Lahore, as well as bombings in two other cities in the north-west.
The US is giving full backing to the Pakistani operations, which are linked to its own offensive against the Taliban in Afghanistan, our correspondent says.
Dying man wins bet he would live
A Buckinghamshire man diagnosed with terminal cancer is to collect a second winning payout of £5,000 after betting he would stay alive.
Jon Matthews, 59, from Milton Keynes, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos, in 2006 and told he had months to live.
He placed two bets, each with a £100 stake at odds of 50/1, that he would be alive in June 2008 and in June 2009.
A third wager will earn him a further £10,000 if he lives until 1 June 2010.
The widower will collect his second lot of £5,000 winnings on Monday.
Mr Matthews said: "I think I'm the first person in the world to bet on my own life.
"When I was diagnosed I was told mesothelioma was a death sentence.
"I wasn't that fussed because everyone has to die some time.
"But the interesting thing for me was how long it would take - would it take weeks or years?"
Mr Matthews said he planned to give away most of his winnings to charities, including the cancer charity Macmillan.
William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said: "We had never been asked to accept a bet of this nature before.
"But as Jon approached us directly and was adamant that it would give him an additional incentive to battle his illness, we offered him the bets he wanted.
"Never in 30 years in the business have I been so pleased to pay a winning client £10,000, with, I trust, a further £10,000 to come next year."
Jon Matthews, 59, from Milton Keynes, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos, in 2006 and told he had months to live.
He placed two bets, each with a £100 stake at odds of 50/1, that he would be alive in June 2008 and in June 2009.
A third wager will earn him a further £10,000 if he lives until 1 June 2010.
The widower will collect his second lot of £5,000 winnings on Monday.
Mr Matthews said: "I think I'm the first person in the world to bet on my own life.
"When I was diagnosed I was told mesothelioma was a death sentence.
"I wasn't that fussed because everyone has to die some time.
"But the interesting thing for me was how long it would take - would it take weeks or years?"
Mr Matthews said he planned to give away most of his winnings to charities, including the cancer charity Macmillan.
William Hill spokesman Graham Sharpe said: "We had never been asked to accept a bet of this nature before.
"But as Jon approached us directly and was adamant that it would give him an additional incentive to battle his illness, we offered him the bets he wanted.
"Never in 30 years in the business have I been so pleased to pay a winning client £10,000, with, I trust, a further £10,000 to come next year."
Paris jewel thief takes $8m haul
Jewellery worth more than 6m euros (£5m, $8m) has been stolen from an exclusive Paris store in broad daylight by a lone gunman, police sources say.
Dressed in a suit and fedora, the man entered Chopard on Place Vendome and reportedly made staff hand over 15 pieces of jewellery at gunpoint.
The mid-afternoon hold-up lasted two minutes, after which the robber, said to be in his 50s, calmly walked out.
Chopard jewellery is worn by stars at the Oscars and Cannes film festival.
Place Vendome is an elegant old square known for its luxury hotels, and is also home to numerous jewellery stores as well as the French justice ministry.
In December, armed robbers stole jewels worth at least 80m euros ($102m) from a store near the French capital's famous Champs-Elysees avenue.
As many as four robbers, two disguised as women, raided the Harry Winston's store and stole nearly all its valuables.
'Like any other customer'
The Vendome robber struck just before 1500 (1300 GMT) on Saturday, at a time when, in good weather, the square is usually full of strollers.
"According to the first set of information we received, it was a man in his 50s, dressed in a chic costume and wearing a Borsalino [fedora] hat," Olivier Lebon, a police union representative, told Reuters news agency.
"He came in like any other customer, pointed his gun at employees and asked for about 15 pieces."
It was not immediately known if the robber had an accomplice waiting for him outside the store.
A sales assistant working in an adjacent jeweller's store told AFP news agency she had heard and seen nothing. "We were working," she added.
Late on Saturday afternoon, the store at No 1 Place Vendome stood closed behind iron shutters, an AFP correspondent reports.
Only some leather handbags could be seen in the window, and no trace of a robbery could be seen from the outside.
The French capital was basking in sunshine on Saturday, with temperatures rising to a summery 23C, AFP reports.
At least some of the capital's beau monde would have attending the French Open, one of the tennis world's most prestigious events, at the city's Roland Garros stadium.
Among Chopard's commissions is the Golden Palm awarded at the Cannes festival.
Founded in 1860, the firm has branches in major cities across the world.
Dressed in a suit and fedora, the man entered Chopard on Place Vendome and reportedly made staff hand over 15 pieces of jewellery at gunpoint.
The mid-afternoon hold-up lasted two minutes, after which the robber, said to be in his 50s, calmly walked out.
Chopard jewellery is worn by stars at the Oscars and Cannes film festival.
Place Vendome is an elegant old square known for its luxury hotels, and is also home to numerous jewellery stores as well as the French justice ministry.
In December, armed robbers stole jewels worth at least 80m euros ($102m) from a store near the French capital's famous Champs-Elysees avenue.
As many as four robbers, two disguised as women, raided the Harry Winston's store and stole nearly all its valuables.
'Like any other customer'
The Vendome robber struck just before 1500 (1300 GMT) on Saturday, at a time when, in good weather, the square is usually full of strollers.
"According to the first set of information we received, it was a man in his 50s, dressed in a chic costume and wearing a Borsalino [fedora] hat," Olivier Lebon, a police union representative, told Reuters news agency.
"He came in like any other customer, pointed his gun at employees and asked for about 15 pieces."
It was not immediately known if the robber had an accomplice waiting for him outside the store.
A sales assistant working in an adjacent jeweller's store told AFP news agency she had heard and seen nothing. "We were working," she added.
Late on Saturday afternoon, the store at No 1 Place Vendome stood closed behind iron shutters, an AFP correspondent reports.
Only some leather handbags could be seen in the window, and no trace of a robbery could be seen from the outside.
The French capital was basking in sunshine on Saturday, with temperatures rising to a summery 23C, AFP reports.
At least some of the capital's beau monde would have attending the French Open, one of the tennis world's most prestigious events, at the city's Roland Garros stadium.
Among Chopard's commissions is the Golden Palm awarded at the Cannes festival.
Founded in 1860, the firm has branches in major cities across the world.
Iran candidate Mousavi backs women's rights
Presidential candidate Mir-Hossein Mousavi has vowed to review laws that discriminate against women in Iran if he wins an upcoming election.
Watched by his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, Mr Mousavi told an audience of female supporters in Tehran: "We should reform laws that are unfair to women."
Patrols of so-called "morality police" regularly enforce standards of Islamic dress on Iran's streets.
Mr Mousavi, a reformist former PM, says he would seek to disband the force.
As Ms Rahnavard spoke, many in the crowd shouted protests against the morality police, who regularly arrest women they deem inappropriately dressed.
"We should prepare the ground for an Iran where women are treated without discrimination," the AFP news agency reported her as saying.
"We should reform laws that treat women unequally. We should empower women financially, women should be able to choose their professions according to their merits, and Iranian women should be able to reach the highest level of decision making bodies."
Challenger
Mir-Hossein Mousavi said he would put forward a bill to amend laws judged to be at odds with the spirit of Iran's constitution, in particular "discriminatory and unjust regulations" against women.
He also voiced his support for those campaigning for women's rights and pledged new legal measures to help end violence against women.
Correspondents consider Mr Mousavi the main reformist challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , who is seeking another term.
He is one of four candidates approved to run in the country's president election, to be held on 12 June.
Mr Mousavi served as prime minister during the years of the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-1988.
The other candidates are a former head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, and Mehdi Karroubi who was a speaker of parliament and is considered a reformist.
Women's rights are an emotive issue, with both Zahra Rahnavard and the wife of his rival Mehdi Karroubi taking an active role on the campaign trail.
Watched by his wife, Zahra Rahnavard, Mr Mousavi told an audience of female supporters in Tehran: "We should reform laws that are unfair to women."
Patrols of so-called "morality police" regularly enforce standards of Islamic dress on Iran's streets.
Mr Mousavi, a reformist former PM, says he would seek to disband the force.
As Ms Rahnavard spoke, many in the crowd shouted protests against the morality police, who regularly arrest women they deem inappropriately dressed.
"We should prepare the ground for an Iran where women are treated without discrimination," the AFP news agency reported her as saying.
"We should reform laws that treat women unequally. We should empower women financially, women should be able to choose their professions according to their merits, and Iranian women should be able to reach the highest level of decision making bodies."
Challenger
Mir-Hossein Mousavi said he would put forward a bill to amend laws judged to be at odds with the spirit of Iran's constitution, in particular "discriminatory and unjust regulations" against women.
He also voiced his support for those campaigning for women's rights and pledged new legal measures to help end violence against women.
Correspondents consider Mr Mousavi the main reformist challenger to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad , who is seeking another term.
He is one of four candidates approved to run in the country's president election, to be held on 12 June.
Mr Mousavi served as prime minister during the years of the Iran-Iraq war from 1980-1988.
The other candidates are a former head of Iran's powerful Revolutionary Guards, Mohsen Rezai, and Mehdi Karroubi who was a speaker of parliament and is considered a reformist.
Women's rights are an emotive issue, with both Zahra Rahnavard and the wife of his rival Mehdi Karroubi taking an active role on the campaign trail.
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