Government forces destroyed three militant bases and killed 15 insurgents yesterday in Pakistan’s northwestern Swat valley, the army said yesterday, taking the death toll to 45 in five days after a lull in the campaign to clear the Taliban out of the valley.
Two militant commanders were among those killed in the dawn raids in the Khyber region, a statement from the Frontier Corps said. It said 25 suspected militants were captured in the operation, which was continuing.
Pakistan’s military has intensified its fight against the Taliban, who are believed to shelter al-Qaeda leaders in areas they control and help their Afghan allies plot attacks against Western troops across the border.
The army went on the offensive in Swat in late April and says it has killed more than 2,000 militants, and lost 312 soldiers in the fighting. Independent casualty estimates are unavailable.
Despite the Taliban’s losses, the recent clashes and a suicide attack in Swat’s main town of Mingora on Sunday showed they can still hit back.
“It was very precise and we managed to kill 15 militants,” Lieutenant Colonel Akhtar Abbas, a military spokesman in Swat, said of the attack launched on Monday evening.
The army had already killed at least 30 insurgents in encounters since Friday, while 12 police recruits were killed by a suicide bomber on Sunday.
“It’s an assault against terrorists, anti-social and anti-state elements and it will continue until the region is cleared of them,” the top government officer, Tariq Hayat Khan, said of the latest fighting.
Troops used artillery to attack militant positions while residents said helicopter gunships flew over the area but did not take part in the operation.
The offensive in Khyber came less than a week after a suicide bomber killed 22 Pakistani border guards in an attack at the main crossing point into Afghanistan.
The Aug. 27 attack at the Torkham crossing, one of the few major gateways for supplies to NATO troops in Afghanistan, was blamed on Pakistani Taliban militants who operate in the lawless tribal areas near the border.
The attack o was the first major operation since Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud was killed in a US missile strike early last month.
Hakimullah Mehsud, who led militants in the Khyber, Orakzai and Kurram tribal regions, has been chosen as the new overall commander of the Pakistani Taliban.
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