Pakistan forces go behind Taliban lines

PAKISTANI commandos dropped from helicopters behind Taliban lines in the Swat Valley in a widening offensive that the military said has pushed the number fleeing fighting in the north-west to 1.3 million.

Farther south, a suspected US missile attack flattened a house and killed at least eight people in another militant stronghold near the Afghan border.

Helicopters inserted troops on “search and destroy” missions into the remote Piochar area in the upper reaches of the Swat Valley, army spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said.