ya allah madad
0mm3afnan
instead of militants you should read it as *innocents*
lol, how these two words rhyme with each other
lol, how these two words rhyme with each other
By Mushtaq Yusufzai &
Musa Khankhel
PESHAWAR/MINGORA: A massive military operation was finally launched by the security forces against the militants in the Swat district on Sunday with an Army spokesman saying that, at least, 30 followers of rebel cleric Maulana Fazlullah had been killed and his group’s strongholds destroyed.
Major General Waheed Arshad, the military spokesman and Director General, Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR), also conceded the death of two soldiers and injuries to another 14 in the non-stop exchange of gunfire between the security forces and the militants during the night between Saturday and Sunday. The fighting continued on Sunday as the militants tried to put up a fight to stop the advance of troops into their area.
The authorities extended the 24-hour curfew to an indefinite period in the restive Swat and the adjoining Malakand Agency, causing untold hardships to thousands of residents of the region. By late Sunday evening, the curfew had been in place for more than 36 hours and nobody knew when it would end.
Soon after the imposition of the curfew in the area on Saturday afternoon, the security forces started a major military campaign against the armed followers of Maulana Fazlullah, nicknamed as Radio Mullah.
For the first time, hundreds of ground troops took part in the action after their deployment in the once peaceful valley about three months ago. The paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), Frontier Constabulary (FC) and Frontier police assisted the Pakistan Army soldiers in carrying out the military operations.
Residents in the troubled area said the security forces had been using heavy weaponry against the militants since Saturday afternoon. As part of the ongoing operation by the security forces in Swat, the troops occupied mountain peaks, including Najia Top and Usmani Sar overlooking the militants’ strongholds at Mam Dheri, Kuza Bandai, Bara Bandai and Ningolai. The soldiers also occupied other vantage positions in the area.
Talking to The News from Rawalpindi, Major General Waheed Arshad said 30 militants had been killed in the fighting. He said that most of the trouble spots had been purged of the militants and efforts were continuing to evict them from the remaining villages.
He said during the night time of the military operation, security forces took great care not to target mosques, Madaris and the populated areas and avoid civilian losses. “Artillery fire was brought only on the militants hideouts. Their ammunition dump located in the Government School in Kuza Bandai was also destroyed,” he said.
He said the ground forces, having air cover of gunship helicopters, attacked the hideouts of the militants as they moved deeper into the strongholds of the group. The general said the troops had also attacked the hideouts in the adjoining Shangla district but he didn’t have confirmed reports about the number of casualties there.
On the other hand, the militants’ spokesman Sirajuddin insisted that 25 soldiers were killed in the fighting and another 20 had been besieged near Mam Dheri, the village of Maulana Fazlullah, and the headquarters of his group. Speaking from an unknown location, he claimed the soldiers were killed when they tried to cross the river Swat to storm Mam Dheri. He maintained that only six Taliban fighters were killed in the fighting. He said 25 non-combatant civilians sustained injuries in the course of the fighting.
Independent sources said that security forces had not yet reached Mam Dheri, where the militants had gathered to resist its takeover. The sources said exchange of heavy fire was taking place between the militants and the security forces outside the entry-points to the village. Maulana Fazlullah’s huge under-construction mosque and madrassa complex are located in Mam Dheri.
However, Major General Waheed Arshad said the security forces had captured both the entry-points to Mam Dheri. “We have no plans to capture mosques or Madaris. We just want to flush out the militants from the area,” he said.
Villagers said houses were destroyed during the fighting and orchards and agricultural fields suffered severe damage. The house and hujra of Sher Afzal Khan Kaptan, chairman of union council, Koza Bandai, sited near Mam Dheri, was demolished when a volley of rockets hit both the buildings.
A milkman was caught in the cross-firing and succumbed to bullet injuries in Ningolai while another person was injured in the same incident. Militants in Balogram and Rahimabad villages near Mingora fired upon a mobile vehicle of the police. Resultantly, two policemen sustained minor injuries.
In another incident on Saturday night, an explosives-filled Suzuki van parked along the roadside exploded. The blast caused injuries to a policeman. Meanwhile, the extended curfew compounded the problems of the population in Malakand Agency, which is used as a conduit to send military reinforcements and weapons to Swat. The authorities relaxed the curfew there from 8 am to 12 noon.
The supply of food and daily-use items has also been disrupted to Swat, Upper Dir, Lower Dir and Chitral districts and Malakand Agency because the main approach road, Mardan-Malakand Road, had been blocked to all kinds of vehicular traffic since Saturday afternoon.
Cellular-phone services have been jammed while landline telephones have gone dead in Shangla, Swat and Battagram districts. It is noteworthy that there is no military operation in Battagram, though it provides an alternate route to Shangla.
A large number of people who wanted to move to safer areas from Swat, were stranded on the roadside, in fields and gas stations and other places on the Mingora-Malakand road. Old people, women and children have to suffer the most as they are ill-equipped to cope with the cold weather. The government has been slow to set up camps for the displaced people at Barikot in Swat and far away in Risalpur in Nowshera district. In any case, most of the families don’t want to stay in these camps and were instead putting up with friends and relations or were renting houses in Malakand Agency, Mardan, Charsadda and other districts in the down country.
