Pakistan says Taliban leader in Swat surrounded (2nd Roundup)

Sep 13, 2009, 16:56 GMT

Islamabad - Pakistan's Interior Minister Rehman Malik said on Sunday that the Taliban commander in the north-western Swat valley had been surrounded and would soon be captured.

The statement came as 13 Islamist insurgents and three paramilitary soldiers died in two incidents of violence in the neighbouring tribal region that borders Afghanistan.

Maulana Fazlullah, supported by hundreds of fighters, rose in rebellion against the government in 2007 to enforce strict Taliban- like laws in Swat, a scenic mountain district 140 kilometers from the capital city, Islamabad.

Security forces launched a full-fledged air and ground operation against the militants in Swat and its nearby districts in late April, after they flouted a peace pact under which government agreed to impose Islamic sharia rule in return for end to the insurgency.

The military says more than 2,000 fighters have been killed but the claim lacks independent confirmation.

'The back of anti-state and anti-Islam elements has been broken,' Malik told reporters in Islamabad after holding a meeting with tribal leaders from the country's restive north-western region bordering Afghanistan, where government forces are pursuing anti-Taliban offensives.

Malik said troops were closing in on Fazlullah, adding that 'he can't run.'

The minister's remarks came two days after the military announced the capture of Fazullah's spokesman Muslim Khan.

According to the army, Khan was arrested along with four other militants, including a senior leader, near Swat's main town of Mingora.

Separately, a roadside bomb on Sunday killed three soldiers in Pakistan's Khyber tribal district, where a retaliatory operation by the security forces left three suspected militants dead.

The remote-controlled blast struck a vehicle carrying troops from the Frontier Corps paramilitary force as it passed through the Mandikas area close to the Afghan border.

'Two soldiers died at the scene whereas four others were wounded,' said Rahat Gul, an official in the local administration. One of the injured succumbed to his wounds in the hospital, he added.

Government forces cordoned off the area after the explosion and killed three militants in gunfights, the Urdu-language Geo News television channel reported.

Troops launched a major offensive in Bara on September 1, largely focusing on insurgents linked with Lashkar-e-Islam militant group, which is blamed for attacks on trucks carrying supplies for Western forces in Afghanistan, besides drug smuggling and kidnappings.

The military said at least 157 militants, including a few commanders, have been killed in the offensive but there is no independent confirmation of the casualty count.

Nearly two dozen hideouts and scores of houses used by the rebels were destroyed during the last two weeks, the military said.

Lashkar-e-Islam chief Mangal Bagh warned of revenge attacks and asked the tribal police, known as Khasadar force, to quit their jobs.

Khyber's top administrator Tariq Hayat Khan told the BBC's Urdu news service on Saturday that 300 policemen did not report for duty at the weekend.

Khan, however, said the situation would not make an impact on the operation. The government has doubled the number of soldiers deployed in the district.

Meanwhile, 10 Taliban fighters died and 20 were injured when helicopter gunships pounded militant positions in South Waziristan, another stronghold of former Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, who died in a US drone attack early last month.

'The limited airstrikes were carried out in Ladha area,' said an intelligence official who further informed that the ground troops demolished 10 houses of the suspected rebels.

Mehsud led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an umbrella organization of more than a dozen extremist organizations, including Fazlullah's group in Swat.

The TTP fighters have chosen Hakimullah Mehsud, a young Taliban commander who is from Baitullah's Mehsud tribe, as their new chief.