Exodus from Pakistan's northwest as fighting rages

Tuesday, May 12, 2009 at 11:39 PM Posted by Beijing News


Pakistan pounded Taliban hideouts Monday, pressing an onslaught that officials say has killed more than 700 insurgents and sent more than 360,000 people fleeing in just over a week.

Ground forces shelled strongholds in the northwestern Swat valley, where around 4,000 Taliban are believed to be battling for control of the former ski resort, once popular with Westerners but now devastated by violence.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said more than 700 militants had been killed in the region as the military announced Monday that 52 "miscreants" died in exchanges of fire over the last 24 hours in Swat.

Such official tolls -- released as daily updates that add up to 775 dead militants in the last 15 days -- have been unverifiable and authorities have not released any information on civilian casualties.

The military has reported 24 soldiers dead, including three killed in Swat over the last 24 hours to Monday.

In a sign that Islamist violence could be escalating away from the offensives against the Taliban, a suicide car bomber killed 10 people at a paramilitary checkpoint near Darra Adam Khel, south of the city of Peshawar.

"Ten people were killed. Three of them died of their injuries in hospital. And seven people are injured," an intelligence official told AFP.

Officials said a six-year-old girl and two security forces personnel were among those killed when the attacker detonated his car near the checkpost, manned by the same paramilitary soldiers engaged in the anti-Taliban campaign.

Around 12,000 to 15,000 security forces are battling Islamist fighters in three northwest districts in what Islamabad says is a fight to eliminate militants -- branded by Washington the greatest terror threat to the West.

"The very existence of the country was at stake. We were left with no option," Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told parliament Monday.

"We will force them to lay down their arms and respect the writ of the government. The defence of the country is strong and we will defeat them."

Extremist attacks have killed at least 1,800 people across nuclear-armed Pakistan in less than two years and around 2,000 soldiers have died in battles with Islamist militants since 2002.

Aid workers are stepping up assistance to displaced civilians fleeing the region in their tens of thousands on foot and crammed into clapped-out vehicles, often carrying little more than blankets and children.

Manuel Bessler, head in Pakistan of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs OCHA, warned that the number of displaced could double in a long-term crisis.

"We have no doubt that the humanitarian crisis at our hands here affects a lot of people and I'm afraid will last for quite a while," he told AFP.

The UN refugee agency said more than 360,000 displaced had registered after escaping the worst-affected districts of Buner, Lower Dir and Swat, although OCHA feared the numbers could be much higher.

"We have to be prepared to assist up to 800,000 in addition to the already pre-existing 500,000," Bessler said.

He said small bands of militants had moved into homes abandoned by fleeing civilians, where they were hunkered down and firing on the military.



Kashmiri Muslims paddle at sunset on Dal Lake in Srinagar. AFP/Tauseef Mustafa

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