Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships targeted militant hideouts in the Swat Valley on Sunday, the military said, after fierce fighting killed 50 militants and 10 soldiers in the past 24 hours. "Fighting is still going on. We hit and destroyed over 40 militants' bunkers and a training camp," said Major Nasir Ali, military spokesman in the region. "We have confirmed reports that 50 militants were killed while 10 of our soldiers were martyred." Ali said the number of militants' deaths could be higher as many bodies had been taken away. Residents in Kabal, about 20 km west of Mingora, the region's main town, said intermittent mortar bombing by security forces had continued since Saturday while Cobra helicopter gunships carried out strikes early Sunday morning on militants' positions in the mountains. Seven villagers were killed and three wounded in mortar bombing, residents said. "We can't even flee. There's curfew on the one hand and on the other hand, militants use us as a human shield when they are attacked. What we can do?" villager Khaisat Bacha told Reuters.
Separately, suspected militants killed and dumped bodies of four men on the roadside in a village, police said, adding the men's hands and legs were tied with rope.
More than 200,000 people have fled fighting in northwestern Pakistan this month and are in urgent need of relief assistance, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday. The Interior Ministry said in a statement on Sunday that 30 trucks of relief goods were being sent for displaced people in various camps.
Meanwhile, in the South Waziristan tribal region, militants ambushed a military convoy near the Afghan border on Sunday, wounding three soldiers, security officials said.