Bajaur area was administered by Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan until 2007, and it remained Al-Qaeda's central command and control for carrying out activities in Northeast Afghanistan and Kunar province.

[4] During the early days of August in 2008, a check-post was established by the Frontier Corps to seize control of the Afghan-Pakistan border crossing over Tehrik-e-Taliban.

[2][7][8] Several days later, the Frontier Corps began a large-scale offensive under the command of Major-General Tariq Khan, codenamed Operation Sherdil (Lion heart), intending to regain control of Bajaur from the Taliban.

[10] By the end of the year, the Army claimed that it had killed more than 1,000 militants, including the foreign commander of Al Qaeda, an Egyptian called Abu Saeed Al-Masri.

[12] The military encouraged local tribes to rebel against the Taliban by raising the lashkars (tribal militias) to fight alongside the government forces.

[1] On 7 October, the Salarzai elders announced that they had cleared their tribal territory of militants, and requested the deployment of government troops to consolidate the gains they had made.

The last operation was launched in February 2010 with fresh reinforcements to mop up the last pockets of militants, including the notorious Damadola stronghold.

Military officials allegedly said the conflict "could decide the fate of other tribal areas" with Bajaur possibly being the most crucial militant stronghold outside of Waziristan.

[10] On 28 February 2009,[17] the security forces defeated the Taliban and other Islamist militants in Bajaur, which was a strategically important region on the Afghan border.

His physical presence at the forward-most positions during critical stages of the battle was an inspiration for the junior leaders and a morale booster for the troops.

The troops were ambushed at Tankhatta, where they retaliated and held their positions for over 8 hours against well-entrenched militants to facilitate previous infiltration of the party besieged at Loesam.

[citation needed] In another incident, the convoy of Inspector-General Frontier Corps Major-General Tariq Khan was ambushed on 9 September 2009 at Nissarabad.

Col. Nauman went back to the ambush site with a tank and a Quick Response Force to extricate the crew of a vehicle that was disabled by the militants fire.