Operation against militants continues in Swat

PESHAWAR—Gunship helicopters and artillery guns engaged various positions of militants in Swat on Wednesday, according to a press release of the media information center Mingora.
In the area south of Frontier Constabulary Camp in Kanju, a militants’ concentration was hit by artillery and mortar fire Tuesday evening, causing casualties.
Positions of militants were hit with artillery fire in the Kot Nawakalai area in Charbagh Tehsil on Tuesday, killing 20 militants and injuring 40. As a result of the ongoing operation against militants in Shangla area, 10 bodies and 40 injured militants have been brought from Alpuri to Tehsil Civil Hospital Matta.
The bodies of another two militants were brought from Alpuri to area Dakorak area near Charbagh, including Muhammad Ali who was also involved in the robbery case of National Bank of Pakistan, Chuprial Branch, Tehsil Matta. In Kass area South of Manglawar, militant’s positions were targeted by gunship helicopters in the morning. However information about the number of casualties and other damages was not immediately available.
Life in Mingora city remained peaceful. School and offices were functioning and people remained busy in their normal daily routine. Security forces have taken control of a mountainous hub of militants near Shangla-Alpuri road in the latest offensive, killing at least 40 militants, the army said Wednesday.
According to a statement of ISPR, the security forces cleared a pocket of resistance from militants in the scenic Swat Valley’s Shangla region, leaving 40 fighters dead. The militants suffered the casualties in two days of raids. Early morning Wednesday miscreants fired 18 to 20 rockets at Kabal camp. The forces retaliated the attack, however no losses reported in the incident.
Pakistani troops wiped out a mountaintop militant base in a troubled northwestern valley, killing at least 40 followers of a rebel pro-Taliban cleric, the military said Wednesday. The insurgents were killed on Tuesday in the Swat Valley, a tourist spot which has been partly occupied by militants seeking Islamic Sharia law, top army spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad said. Residents said four civilians also died in clashes in Swat. The army says around 190 people have been killed during more than a week of heavy fighting in the region, which borders Pakistan’s troubled tribal belt. Arshad said soldiers had cleared a “hub of resistance” from a hilltop in the valley’s Shangla district, where the militants have dug in against security forces.
“The operation is continuing today in several parts of Swat,” Arshad told. Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf, who cited growing militancy as one of the key reasons for declaring emergency rule on November 3, has ordered the military to flush militants out of the area.
Militants fired around 20 rockets at a security forces camp in the town of Kabal after which soldiers fired back, but there were no reports of casualties on either side, an army statement said. Separately a crudely-made bomb exploded near a police station but caused no casualties or damage, it said. Residents in Kabal said that intense gunfire continued through Tuesday night and that gunship helicopters also pounded suspected militant hideouts early on Wednesday. The military had asked local people to vacate the area on Monday to avoid civilian casualties. But residents said four civilians were killed and two others were injured when a mortar shell fell on a house. It was not clear whether it was fired by militants or troops, they said.—Agencies