More than 30 militants dead in NW Pakistan violence

PESHAWAR: More than 30 suspected extremists were killed in military air strikes and ground operations targeting Al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked militants in northwest Pakistan, officials said Sunday.

The highest number of dead was in the restive Swat valley, which was until last year a popular tourist destination, but has since become a battleground after a pro-Taliban cleric began a push to impose Islamic Sharia law.

Fifteen militants and three soldiers were killed late Saturday in an ongoing military operation against fighters loyal to the cleric Maulana Fazlullah, a senior military official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

In a separate development, a local newspaper journalist was shot dead on Saturday night in Mingora, the main town in Swat valley, after failing to stop as a military convoy passed.

A police official said the shots were fired because suicide bombers have previously attacked security force convoys in a similar manner.

Elsewhere, an ongoing operation against militants in Bajaur district saw at least 14 insurgents killed Sunday when Pakistani jets pounded suspected Taliban hide-outs in the towns of Damadola, Harkai and Siprai.

"According to reports received here airstrikes have killed 14 militants and destroyed several underground bunkers and ammunition dumps used by them," local government official Mohammad Jamil said.

Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of extremists who fled Afghanistan after the US-led toppling of the hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 and have since set up training camps.

The Pakistani military said last month that some 1,500 rebels and 73 soldiers had died and hundreds more militants been captured since the start of their operation in Bajaur in August.

Suspected US missile strikes have also targeted militants in the border regions.

Meanwhile, soldiers killed seven militants and injured nine others in Mohmand, one of seven semi-autonomous tribal regions bordering Afghanistan, a paramilitary spokesman said.

The gunfight erupted late Saturday when around 200 Taliban militants surrounded a checkpoint near Karapa village and started firing rockets, he said.

Militants also blew up a bridge on a key road in Mohmand, but the blast caused no casualties and the repair work had been started, he said.

Separately in Baluchistan province, southwest Pakistan, a remote-controlled bomb attached to a motorbike killed a pedestrian and wounded four others in the town of Sui.

Similar bombings have been blamed on separatist, secular tribal rebels.