22 pro-Taliban militants killed in Pakistan's restive Swat valley

Dec 11, 2007, 17:02 GMT

Islamabad - At least 22 pro-Taliban militants were killed in the ongoing military offensive in Pakistan's volatile north-west Swat valley, the army said Tuesday.

'Artillery fire and gunship helicopters targeted militant positions in two areas in Swat valley,' chief military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa.

'According to the information received from our local sources 20 militants were killed and up to 15 were injured,' he said. Two bodies of the militants were found in another Chakdarra area of the valley.

Security forces also apprehended five more pro-Taliban militants, whose leader and the firebrand cleric Maulana Fazlullah has waged an armed campaign to enforce Taliban-style Islamic rule in the scenic valley, a popular tourist destination 160 kilometres from Islamabad.

The fresh violence came three days after the military said it had cleared most parts of the Swat, killing 290 and arresting more than 140 in a seven-week offensive.

Fazlullah, who once used to have a militia of 5000 fighters, is still at large with 400 to 500 hardcore loyalists, according to army. The rest have hidden their weapons and trying to mingle with the civilian population.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a security forces' check post, killing three policemen and six civilians.

The army offensive started in late October when President Pervez Musharraf sent additional troops to rein in Fazlullah and his 5000 followers, who had captured several villages and towns in the region and set up their own rule there.

Islamic militancy, with its ideological roots in the Taliban's interpretation of Islam, has spilled over into Swat from Pakistan's lawless tribal belt, where hundreds of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants fled after US-led forces invaded Afghanistan.