37 more killed in Bajaur clashes

War on Terror

11 Aug 2008, NewAgeIslam.Com

37 more killed in Bajaur clashes

By Muhstaq Yusufzai Saturday, August 09, 2008   PESHAWAR: At least 37 people, including 30 militants and seven security personnel, were killed and several others injured in continued clashes between the security forces and the militants in the troubled Bajaur Agency on Friday.   Also, the militants were reported to have suffered heavy losses when jet fighters blitzed their alleged training camps and suspected locations at Loisam, Charmang, Banda, Tangi and Inzaray villages.   An official of Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) told The News that troops continued targeting militants' training camps and locations in Loisam and Charmang and inflicted heavy losses on what he called 'miscreants'.   He said from militants' intercepts, they learnt that 30 of their fighters were killed and several others injured. The official said seven soldiers were also killed and five others injured in the fighting.   Another government official based in Khar, Bajaur's regional headquarters, said 70 militants were killed in Friday's clashes and during bombing by jet fighters on their hideouts.   He said he had learnt that bodies of the slain militants were still lying at various places as there weren't many people in the almost deserted villages to retrieve the corpses and make arrangements for their burial.   The official said three children sustained serious injuries when a misdirected mortar shell fell on a house in Inayat Kallay.   Sources said four jet fighters started bombing militants' locations at Loisam and Charmang when the paramilitary Frontier Corps, Bajaur Levies and Pakistan Army troops came under attack around 11am.   They said militants on Friday also targeted positions of security forces.   The official sources said soldiers were advancing on the Loisam area, adding more enforcement was being rushed to the region.   The suspected hideouts of militants were being pounded in Mand area of Khar and Dir, they added.   Eyewitness said the area had been under undeclared curfew for the last three days. Business centres were closed and terrified people migrating to safer places.   There were also reports that Taliban were distributing supplies left in Siddiqabad and Khazana Morh to the people.   An official of the political administration, however, said around 20 troops were killed on Friday in a Taliban ambush on the military convoy that was on its way from Lower Dir to Loesam in Bajaur. Requesting anonymity, he said the convoy comprising 30 vehicles was ambushed beyond Siddiqabad at a spot where a vegetable ghee factory and an abandoned camp for Afghan refugees were located. He said the convoy had safely traversed the journey from Munda in Lower Dir and crossed Bajaur's headquarters, Khar, before coming under attack.   AFP adds: Taliban militants beheaded two men and shot dead a third allegedly for spying on them, officials and witnesses said Friday.   The bodies of three men were found dumped by a road at Kayrala village in Bajaur with notes saying "these people were spying on Taliban movement fighters," a local government official told AFP.   Witnesses said that two had their heads severed and the third was killed by a gunshot.