Pakistan: Town on alert after more clashes

Militants seized a police post and paramilitary troops set up sandbagged bunkers to bolster security in a tense town in northwestern Pakistan where supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric have taken up arms against the government, police said today.

Militants have clashed with security forces in the Swat district since Friday, when the military raided the stronghold of the pro-Taliban cleric, Maualana Fazlullah.

Fifteen people have been killed in the violence, including six security personnel and seven civilians who were beheaded by militants, officials said.

Militants captured the police post in Charbagh village near Mingora, the main town in Swat district, late yesterday after nearly a dozen policemen deployed there abandoned it after coming under a heavy attack, a senior police official said.

Police and paramilitary troops set up security posts and bunkers protected by sand bags in Kabal, a small town near Mingora dominated by supporters of Fazlullah, who is demanding implementation of Islamic laws in the region, the official said.

The main bazaar in Kabal was closed, the town was tense and residents were told not to venture out of their homes, but no curfew has officially been declared, he said.

Militants and security forces also exchanged gunfire in Kabal late Saturday but there were no reports of any injuries, he said.

Authorities have deployed 2,500 paramilitary troops to Swat to fight supporters of Fazlullah, who has launched a Taliban-style Islamisation campaign in the once-peaceful and scenic district, and has called for a jihad, or holy war, against the government.

Two days after the troop deployment in Swat, a suicide car bombing struck a military truck in Mingora, killing 19 soldiers and a civilian and wounding 35. But militants denied involvement in the bombing.

Militants decapitated six security personnel and seven civilians who were accused of being government spies, to “terrorise people”, said Home Secretary Badshah Gul Wazir, the top civilian security official in North West Frontier Province, where Swat is located.

The rise in militancy in northwestern Pakistan has shaken the authority of President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the US war on terror.

Fazlullah is the leader of the banned pro-Taliban group Tehrik Nifaz-e-Sharia Mohammedi, or Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law.

Separately, three rockets hit the provincial capital of Peshawar before dawn Sunday, one striking a politician’s house across the road from the US. Consulate, but no one was hurt, police said.