SWAT/ISLAMABAD, 27 October 2007 — Security forces backed by helicopter gunships attacked a militant cleric’s stronghold in northwestern Pakistan yesterday, killing several people as militants kidnapped 11 others, police and a cleric aide said.
Fighting broke out in the village of Imam Dheri in Swat valley, the base of Maulana Fazlullah, a leader of Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat Muhammadi.
Director General of the Inter-Services Public Relations Maj. Gen. Waheed Arshad told Arab News army was deployed in Swat at the request of the provincial NWFP government.
Shaukat Khan, a Mingora-based journalist said a TV cameraman was abducted by armed men belonging to TNSM from Swat’s main bazar. He said some TNSM armed men had tried to set video shops on fire in Mingora but they were stopped from doing so by local policemen.
Provincial home secretary told a press conference in Peshawar in the evening militants beheaded a security personnel and publicly displayed his severed head.
An aide of Fazlullah said one of their fighters was killed and four were wounded in the military raid by security forces using mortars, missiles and strafing by helicopters. Other report said seven militants were killed.
“God willing, casualties on their side (security forces) will be more,” Fazlullah’s aide, Sirajuddin, told AP by telephone from Imam Dheri. “We are sitting in our homes and mosque ... we are defending ourselves. We have carried out retaliation,” he said. “We have enough heavy weapons.” Sirajuddin said the cleric’s supporters will fight until their deaths. He said the cleric was in hiding and has abandoned his stronghold.
Militants in the village and security forces fought with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons across the rushing Swat River, witnesses said. Hundreds of residents fled, local shop owner Rahman Khan said.
“The security forces attacked a building where Fazlullah had been appearing in recent days to urge his followers to target the Pakistan Army, police and other security forces,” said Muhibullah, a local police official, in the nearby town of Mingora.
Also yesterday, militants ambushed a minibus carrying police and paramilitary forces on the outskirts of Swat, kidnapping eleven of them, Muhibullah said. He said rescue efforts were under way, but would not say how many police and security personnel were among the captives.
Separately, militants fired at a helicopter carrying a senior army officer yesterday in the same region. They missed the target and the helicopter made safe landing, said another local police official.
