PESHAWAR: Pakistan is to start withdrawing troops from a troubled northwestern district where Taleban insurgents shot schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in the head, local officials said Sunday.

The army in 2009 sent 30,000 troops to battle Taleban fighters controlled by Maulana Fazlullah, who since 2007 had taken control of the scenic Swat valley and waged a campaign of beheadings, other violence and attacks on girls’ schools.

By July 2009 the army declared the region back under control and said the rebels had all been killed, captured or fled. But more than 20,000 troops remained in Swat and adjacent districts in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Some security officials in Swat have voiced fears that Fazlullah and his loyalists, who escaped into eastern Afghanistan, could make a comeback in the event of a complete army pullout.

The chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pervez Khattak, late Saturday approved the phased withdrawal, his spokesman Shiraz Paracha said.

In the initial stage, troops will be withdrawn from neighboring Buner and Shangla districts in October.

“Chief minister Pervez Khattak has approved gradual withdrawal of forces from Swat and Malakand division. Forces will start leaving Shangla and Buner districts in the first phase from next month,” the spokesman told AFP.

Two officers among 3 killed in blast

A roadside bomb attack on Sunday killed Pakistan’s two senior military officers and a soldier in the country’s troubled northwest, the military said.

Maj. Gen. Sanaullah and Lt. Col. Touseef were visiting troop posts in the Upper Dir district of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, along the Afghan border, when their vehicle hit a planted bomb killing them along with a soldier.