Islamabad - Security forces in Pakistan on Sunday killed 24
militants and gained control of a strategic road tunnel, while 31
rebels were seized in restive Swat valley in country's North-West
Frontier Province (NWFP), the army said.
Heavily-armed fighters captured the Friendship tunnel near the
town of Darra Adam Khel on the Indus Highway Friday evening when
government troops launched an offensive in the area to recover four
trucks carrying ammunition that rebels had seized.
The military said it flushed out militants from most parts of the
mountainous area Sunday after fierce fighting in which heavy
artillery and helicopter gunships were used.
'Reportedly 24 miscreants have been killed and many more fled
leaving behind huge quantity of arms and ammunition,' the statement
said.
However, the military's chief spokesman Major General Athar Abbas
said some militants were still holed up around a couple of peaks.
'It is a mountainous area and the operation will proceed slowly
but our troops are making advance,' Abbas said.
In three days of fighting, pro-Taliban militants had suffered more
than 70 casualties while government forces lost seven soldiers. Ten
troops were also taken hostage when the rebels attacked the road
tunnel and blocked the highway.
The Indus Highway, which connects NWFP with central and southern
Pakistan, is also routinely used by the army for transporting
supplies and troops from the garrison town of Kohat to the tribal
areas, where the military is fighting the al-Qaeda terrorists and
pro-Taliban militants.
Mass exodus is being seen in the Darra Adam Khel area with
hundreds of families evacuating to Kohat in the wake of heavy
artillery shelling and aerial attacks by Cobra helicopters.
The security forces have directed the non-combatant tribesmen to
hoist white flags on their rooftops to avert collateral damage. On
Friday, a rocket fired by the troops narrowly missed a school van.
Violence spread in many tribal districts, including South
Waziristan, where another military operation was underway against a
pro-Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who has been blamed for
masterminding the assassination of former prime minister Benazir
Bhutto.
The security forces are targeting the hideouts of thousands of
tribal warriors loyal to Mehusd with the heavy artillery but the
locals say the civilians are suffering from the government's assault.
Thousands of families have fled to the safer places in the town of
Tank in neighbouring NWFP. Many of them said they had to travel
through the mountains for twenty hours in the freezing temperatures
to reach the town and some couldn't make it.
'I have seen the bodies of more than one dozen persons on my way
to Tank and most of them were either elderly people or children,'
said Shah Mohammed who arrived on Sunday morning to the town from
Makeen area of South Waziristan.
'The security forces are making no distinction between the
civilians and the fighters,' he added.
Hundreds of refugee families from the tribal areas are living
hungry in the open sky in various parts of NWFP.
The restive South Waziristan tribal belt is a safe haven for al-
Qaeda and Taliban fighters carrying out cross-border attacks on
international forces in Afghanistan and hundreds of Pakistani troops
are believed to have died in the recent weeks to contain them.
The country has seen more than 50 suicide bombings in the last 12
months that left over 700 people dead.
The fighting between the followers of a radical cleric Maulana
Fazlullah and government forces also continued in the volatile Swat
valley, which lies on around four hours drive from Islamabad.
'The security forces on Sunday morning conducted a search and
cordon operation in three areas and 31 militants, including the local
commander, have been apprehended,' said the military statement.
A large quantity of arms and ammunition including rifles, pistols,
shot guns and rounds of different calibre were also recovered from
the rebels who launched a campaign late last year to enforce
Taliban-style narrow way of life in the region.
© 2008 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur 
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