Militants kill 11 hostages in Pakistan

Militants have killed all 11 men they kidnapped from a minibus in apparent retaliation for an assault by security forces on the stronghold of a militant cleric in north-western Pakistan, a police official said today.

The men, who included at least four security forces, were abducted on the outskirts of Swat district on Friday. A witness said he had seen six of the bodies with notes attached accusing them of spying for America.

A spokesman for the pro-Taliban cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, claimed the killings were carried out by local residents who back the militants’ aims – although there was no other indication that villagers were responsible for the deaths.

“It was done by common people, who support us because we only want enforcement of Islamic laws,” spokesman Sirajuddin said.

A senior police officer confirmed that all 11 men had been killed.

Militants seized the men after an attack Friday on Fazlullah’s stronghold of Imam Dheri village in which security forces backed by helicopters and militants traded fire using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons.

The fighting claimed at least three lives. It had subsided by today.

About 2,500 paramilitary troops have been deployed to Swat – until recently regarded as one of Pakistan’s main tourist resorts because of its mountain and river scenery – to tackle the cleric who has rallied his supporters to wage jihad, or holy war, against government forces.

Rising militancy in north-western Pakistan has shaken the authority of President General Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the US war on terror. The latest violence marks an escalation of the conflict between his government and pro-Taliban forces.

Authorities dropped leaflets from a helicopter urging residents to help police and paramilitary forces “eliminate extremism and terrorism from the Swat valley”.

“You must remember that establishing Islamic courts, implementation of Shariah (Islamic law) and bringing peace is the first priority of the government,” it said in the local Pashtu language.

The senior police officer said the 11 kidnapped men included three paramilitary soldiers, one policeman and seven civilians – although earlier other police officials said there were eight security personnel and three civilians. It was not immediately possible to account for the discrepancy.

Police recovered the remains of four of the kidnapped men – three Frontier Constabulary soldiers and one policeman – before dawn on Saturday, said Javed Shah, a local police official. He said villagers told police the killings were conducted on Friday in public in Ningulai village, about three two miles from Imam Dheri.

“The masked militants, who were Maulana Fazlullah’s men, displayed their heads and threw the severed heads and the remains of the three FC people and one policeman in a farm field,” Shah said.

Jehangir Khan, a local resident, said he saw six beheaded bodies in the town of Matta, about three miles away from Ningulai. Four were at the roadside and two near a hospital. The corpses had notes attached reading: “It is the fate of an American agent. Whoever works for America will face the same fate,” he said.

The six bodies were apparently different from the four retrieved by police earlier. The location of the 11th body was unclear.

The fighting and killings followed a suicide car bombing Thursday that hit a truck carrying paramilitary troops in a crowded area of Mingora, the main town in Swat district. The attack killed 19 soldiers and a civilian and wounded 35.

Sirajuddin denied the cleric’s involvement in the bombing, saying he wanted peace.

“If the government agrees to enforce Islam, we will lay down arms today,” Sirajuddin said.

He demanded the release of Sufi Muhammad, Fazlullah’s father-in-law who was jailed in 2002 for having sent thousands of volunteers to Afghanistan during the US-led invasion in 2001.

Muhammad had been head of the banned pro-Taliban group Tehrik Nifaz-e-Sharia Mohammedi – or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law – and after his arrest Fazlullah became the new chief. The group has re-emerged this year in Swat and Malakand, another impoverished conservative region near the Afghan border.

A reporter visited Fazlullah’s sprawling seminary at Imam Dheri, which was being guarded by dozens of militants. The seminary, set in idyllic surroundings near apple and peach orchards and the rushing Swat River, was not damaged by Friday’s fighting.

Militants armed with AK-47 assault rifles and submachine guns manned checkpoints on the road leading to Imam Dheri and checked every vehicle. Other long-haired and bearded fighters, wearing turbans and covering their faces, stood at the roadside.

The Mingora blast came a week after an assassination attempt on ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in the southern city of Karachi that killed 143 people. No one has claimed responsibility for that attack.