Paramilitaries on Sunday engaged the pro-Taleban insurgents entrenched in the hills of Manglor in Pakistan’s north- west Swat district, officials said. Fighting resumed at midday after security forces moved out of Fizaghat village to relocate to Charbagh area situated close to the stronghold of the diehard supporters of a fanatic cleric Maulana Fazlullah. ‘The paramilitary personnel are intermittently firing mortars to neutralize the pockets of resistance in Manglor and to provide cover to ground troops,’ a police official said on condition of anonymity.Military helicopter gunships are also providing aerial support to the embattled forces by targeting the fighters, he added. Though the gunfights were not so intense, heavy troop deployment and the mobilising of reinforcements hinted at a possible full-fledged operation against the rebels.
Violence raged in Swat, located some 160 kilometres from North- West Frontier Province (NWFP) capital Peshawar, after security forces laid siege to FazlullahÂ’s seminary in the village of Imam Dheri on Friday. The anarchist cleric, who instigates Islamic rebellion through his illegal FM radio station, is believed to have gone into hiding before the recent clashes that had reportedly left at least 15 people dead.
Recently, authorities air-dropped leaflets in the volatile regions, asking the public to ‘help the security forces in pushing the militants out of the area so that life and business could flourish.’
Tension was running high in SwatÂ’s sub-districts of Matta and Kabal that are seeing general exodus of locals to adjoining safer areas. There were also reports of armed militants assembling in Matta and another nearby village of Khwazakhela.
Government authorities recently deployed some 2,500 paramilitary troops in the otherwise heavenly valley to quell the violent uprising in which the armed extremists tried to enforce Taleban-style laws on the local population. The heavy deployment was followed by the suicide car bombing of a paramilitary truck, which killed more than two dozen people and injured many others.
In the recent past, the zealots bombed music stores and barber shops claiming the businesses violated the religious teachings. They also ordered females to wear Hijab, a traditional female headgear for Muslim women.
Meanwhile, security alert also sounded in the NWFP capital Peshawar on Sunday after three rockets fired from unknown location landed in one of the cityÂ’s sensitive areas, the DawnNews television channel reported. However, there were no casualties. The channel said five more rockets aimed at the Peshawar airport and the garrison area were seized later in the day.