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Fighter jets bombed Taleban hide-outs in Pakistan’s troubled northwest while troops pushed into militant territory on the ground, killing at least 40 fighters in a 24-hour siege, the army said yesterday.
At least 25 militants, including two senior commanders, were killed yesterday in an airstrike by Pakistan’s military in the troubled northwest Swat Valley, a senior security official told media.
“Fighter jets struck the militants’ hide-outs in Peochar, killing 25,” the security official said, naming the area where the strike hit. A military spokesman, Gen. Athar Abbas, told reporters that “a core of militants” had perished in the operation.
“Their command and communications structure has also been destroyed. This was their key area where they had set up ammunition depots, which were also demolished.”
“This strike was carried out after intelligence that top Taleban cleric Mullah Fazlullah was hiding there,” the security official said, but he was unable to confirm if the main target was among the dead. He did, however, say that two of the cleric’s senior commanders had been killed. Fazlullah is also known as Mullah Radio for using an FM channel to propagate the Taleban’s agenda.
Separately, five others died when an explosion ripped through a house near the Afghan border, local officials said. Claims that it was a missile strike could not immediately be confirmed.
Pakistan’s five-month-old civilian government has been plagued by violence and political instability since Pervez Musharraf was forced to resign as president two weeks ago, adding to the many challenges ahead in the Muslim nation of 160 million people.
The economy is sinking, power outages are common, there are food shortages, and many drivers cannot afford to fill up their tanks.
Leaders initially offered to hold peace talks with fighters — something Musharraf also briefly tried before his ouster — but have since resorted to what some are calling all-out war.
Another army spokesman Maj. Nasir Ali said 40 Taleban were killed Friday when fighter jets pounded militants in Swat Valley. A cache of ammunition exploded when it was hit in one of the strikes, he said, adding that ground troops were advancing into the region yesterday to "root out" other militant fighters. Taleban spokesman Muslim Khan said eight of his men, including a local commander, were killed.
The violence followed news that Asif Ali Zardari, who seems poised to be voted Pakistan’s next president in a Sept. 6 election by lawmakers, had moved into a tightly guarded government compound because of security fears.
His late wife, Benazir Bhutto, a two-time former prime minister was assassinated in a Dec. 27 gun-and-bomb attack during a campaign rally. Officials say that fighting in Bajaur and Swat have left nearly 500 militants dead in August alone.
Human rights groups expressed concern yesterday about the rising violence. Locals “insist there is no targeted operation against militants, rather it is a haphazard armed invasion on the people of Swat,” Asma Jahangir, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, wrote in a letter to the prime minister.
“They have given numerous examples where militants could have been apprehended or attacks on civilians could have been averted had the security forces acted with diligence,” she wrote.
In other violence yesterday, a blast ripped through a home in Wana, a main town in the South Wazirtistan tribal region, killing at least five militants, said Afzal Khan, a local official, who had no further details.
PHOTO CAPTION
Pakistani soldiers stand guard on a mountain near Matta in the Swat valley in February 2008.
Arab News
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