Pakistani troops killed as many as 60 Islamist militants during fierce fighting in the Swat valley in the country's northwest, the army said Monday, while the insurgents called a truce to recover their dead and wounded.
Troops firing artillery and backed by helicopter gunships Sunday battled militants led by a pro-Taliban cleric. The cleric had been seeking to impose a strict Islamic code in the scenic valley, which is close to Pakistan's lawless tribal belt and borders Afghanistan.
Major General Waheed Arshad, an army spokesman, said that, based on reports by police and the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary group, the death toll for the militants was as many as 60.
He had no reports of casualties among security forces, although residents reported that at least nine members of the paramilitary group were killed.
The eruption of violence in Swat comes only adds to the volatility in Pakistan: the Supreme Court is hearing challenges to the re-election earlier this month of President Pervez Musharraf, a U.S. ally, and suicide bombers tried to kill the former prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, in an attack that killed 139 people in Karachi when Bhutto returned from self-imposed exile on Oct. 18. Bhutto was not wounded.
The Islamist militants who seek to destabilize Pakistan regard Musharraf and Bhutto as lackeys of the West.
Militant activity has surged in Swat since Maulana Fazlullah, a pro-Taliban cleric, started an illegal FM radio station and urged a jihad, or Muslim holy war. Fazlullah, known as "Mullah Radio," is the de facto head of a pro-Taliban group, Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad's Sharia Law.
A suspected suicide attack that killed at least 21 people, mostly soldiers, last Thursday triggered the latest violence. A day later the militants killed seven civilians and decapitated three soldiers and three policemen.
Villagers said that the militants had announced by radio and loudspeaker the agreement of a cease-fire, in order to allow funerals Monday for those killed in the fighting. According to military officials, however, there is no formal truce.
Thousands fled their homes Sunday as the fighting intensified, residents said.
Suicide and roadside bomb attacks on security forces have multiplied since commandos stormed the Red Mosque in the capital, Islamabad, in July to crush another Taliban-style movement. More than 100 people were killed in the fighting.
Many of the Red Mosque followers hailed from Swat, Waziristan and other poor areas of North-West Frontier Province.
An already dire security situation in the province deteriorated further after the Islamist-led provincial assembly was dissolved this month as part of a move designed to ease the way for Musharraf's re-election by Parliament and provincial assemblies.
In Waziristan, a hotbed of support for the Taliban and Al Qaeda at the other end of the Pashtun tribal belt from Swat, more than 200 soldiers have been held captive since August.
0 Comments