ISLAMABAD: Fighting between government’s security forces, backed by the Pakistan Army troops, and extremist militants continued for third consecutive day yesterday with scores of more people reported killed or injured. However, the main theater of the ongoing battles remained Matta Tehsil of the Swat Valley.
Security forces, backed by helicopter gunships and artillery, pounded several militant hide-outs as the death toll in the northwestern Swat Valley rose to 70, officials and media reports said.
Meanwhile, miscreants set on fire a girls’ school in Mangora, but no loss of life was reported in the incident. Security forces have arrested six people for violating the curfew in Mangora bazaar. The Frontier Constabulary has reopened the Mangora-Matta road for traffic, which was closed by Taleban.
Taleban blew up a police checkpost with explosives in Kishora area of Malam Jabba. Fresh contingents of security forces have reached Swat on the request of provincial government. The law enforcement agencies carried out raids in Malakand after getting reports of presence of Al-Qaeda suspects in the area.
“Our forces have so far killed 45 miscreants in the action,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, an army spokesman. Five soldiers, including an officer, died Wednesday in the Ucharai Sar area, about 300 kilometers northwest of Islamabad.
Since then, artillery fire and gunship helicopters have continually targeted militants in the Matta and Kabal subdistricts.
Casualties among civilians were also high in the three days of fighting. At least 18, many of them women and children, were killed and about three dozen injured as mortar rounds destroyed 40 houses, the English-language newspaper Dawn said.
People in the Bedara area held a rally to protest what they called “indiscriminate shelling” by the military.
