DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan: Streams of civilians jammed into cars and trucks Wednesday to flee the militant stronghold of South Waziristan as the government pounded the area with airstrikes ahead of an expected ground offensive against the Taleban along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan.

Bombing runs over suspected militant hide-outs have sharply increased in recent days after a string of bloody attacks on military and civilian targets killed scores of people across Pakistan. Government officials said the wave of terror was forcing them to take the fight to the insurgents' heartland.

The army, which gave no timeframe for the offensive, has reportedly already sent two divisions totaling 28,000 men and blockaded the region.

Fearing the looming offensive, about 200,000 people have fled South Waziristan since August, moving in with relatives or renting homes in the Tank and Dera Ismail Khan areas, a local government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

Since the weekend, about 80 vehicles a day have been carrying fleeing families past one checkpoint at Chonda on the edge of Dera Ismail Khan, said Naimatullah Khan, a police officer.

Police at the isolated checkpoint stopped the departing vehicles Wednesday, checked people's identification, searched their luggage and frisked some of them. Many of those fleeing had to take circuitous routes over back roads to dodge the military blockade.

In new bombing Wednesday afternoon, military jets pounded a cave in the Spinkai area, killing eight people, officials said.

Local tribesmen said the victims were all civilians, including three women and three children, who had abandoned their home and fled to the cave to seek shelter from the heavy shelling.

Intelligence officials, however, said the bombs hit a suspected militant hide-out, killing eight insurgents.

As of last month, at least 80,000 people had registered with the government as displaced from South Waziristan, said Ariane Rummery, spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency. Government officials say only half of those fleeing the area have bothered to register.

The UN has distributed various types of aid — from kitchen sets to jerry cans — to around 6,500 families, Rummery said.

Taleban spokesman Azam Tariq said Wednesday that any government attack on South Waziristan would be bloody. “We are fully prepared to counter them in an unprecedented war,” he said in a phone interview.

¬