Twenty more killed as Lower Dir offensive continues

TIMERGARA: Pakistani troops killed 20 militants in a ground and air operation against Taliban in the troubled northwest on Monday, the military said.

‘Twenty militants were killed today by the Frontier Corps troops in Maidan area of Lower Dir,’ the military’s media wing said in a statement.

Paramilitary troops and helicopter gunships bombed suspected bases in Lower Dir for a second day running, a military official said.

Meanwhile, several thousand people began fleeing Lower Dir, residents said, a day after security forces launched an operation in the region after being attacked by Taliban militants. There were reports of fierce clashes from different parts of the district.

Helicopter gunships and artillery targeted militant hideouts in the villages of Lal Qala and Islam Qala.

The bodies of 26 militants were found in the battle zone late on Sunday, a military spokesman said. Independent casualty estimates were unavailable.

Sporadic artillery fire was heard overnight and on Monday morning and residents saw a helicopter circling the area.

The ISPR earlier said several militants, among them a ‘commander’, had been killed in clashes in the Kala Daag area.

It said the operation had been launched at the request of the NWFP government and local tribal elders.

Militant spokesman Muslim Khan, meanwhile, threatened that the Taliban would carry out attacks in the entire Malakand region if the operation was not stopped.

He accused the government of violating the Swat peace agreement by launching the operation.

‘The government should stop the operation; otherwise Taliban will resume their activities,’ he warned. He said militants would not lay down arms until ‘Sharia laws’ were promulgated in Malakand.

In the wake of fierce fighting, people started leaving their home and moving to other areas. Local people said that most of the people fleeing the villages in the affected area were women and children.

‘I am leaving everything here and taking my family,’ said Karimullah, a farmer in the Samarbagh area of Lower Dir district.

‘We can't take a risk with troops fighting the Taliban.’

Fazal Rabbi of Hayaserai village told Dawn that hundreds of families left the area after Sufi Mohammad, chief of the banned TNSM, announced that people should leave Maidan before Sunday evening.

Shah Wazir of Galgot said two houses in his village had been hit by shells fired by helicopters.

He said he would take nine women and 14 children of his family to a relative’s place in Harichand in Mardan.

Hundreds of families from Hayaserai, Kad, Lajbok, Darmal, Shako, Shakar Tangay and Kaladag walked several miles to the Dir-Peshawar road to move to safe areas.

According to sources, a sepoy was killed and five others, a major among them, were injured when militants attacked a convoy of Chitral and Dir Scouts with rockets and heavy weapons in Dokrai. The deceased sepoy was identified as Bahadar of Chitral Scouts.

After the attack, security forces backed by helicopters and artillery launched the operation in Maidan area.

Helicopter gunships pounded suspected militant hideouts and also shelled the house of Maulana Shahid, ‘commander’ of Taliban in Maidan.

Official sources claimed that the maulana and his four aides had been killed.All roads were blocked and telephone services were jammed in the area.

Journalists were barred from visiting the area and security personnel snatched the camera of a TV reporter, Syed Amjad Ali Shah, in Balambat and detained him in the Dir Scouts’ fort for some time.

Armed Taliban blocked the Chakdara-Timergara road in Adenzai and tried to kidnap Upper Dir District Forest Officer Hasham Khan, but local people protected him. However, the masked militants took away his official vehicle.

Taliban also kidnapped Major Rahim Khan of Levies in Upper Dir and sepoy Mohammad Khan, along with their official vehicle.

Taliban marched on the Gulabad-Asbanr road with heavy weapons and demanded end to the military operation.

Militants in Gulabad told journalists that they would block troops’ convoys.

Meanwhile, the Jamaat-i-Islami held a protest demonstration in Timergara against the military operation. Hundreds of people, including traders and lawyers, attended the demonstration led by Maulana Ahmad Ghafoor Ghawas.

Lower Dir is about 170 km northwest of Islamabad, and lies on Swat's western flank.

Lower Dir is part of Malakand division where President Zardari sanctioned the imposition of Islamic sharia law this month after a peace deal with cleric, Sufi Mohammad, aimed at ending militant violence.

Our Mingora Correspondent Hameedullah Khan contributed to the report.