WANA, June 13: Military helicopters continued to pound suspected hide-outs of foreign militants for the third day running on Sunday amid reports of no let-up in fighting in the remote Shakai tribal region.
Sources said that foreign militants and their tribal supporters were still putting up a fierce resistance to the troops operating in the Shakai valley, about 17km to the west of here.
"There is still a lot of resistance," said one source adding that the troops operating in the valley surrounded by mountains with thick pine and walnut forests had yet to clear the area and flush out the militants.
The Inter Services Public Relations told a private TV channel that the troops were consolidating their position in the valley. But sources said that PAF planes did not take part in the action on Sunday and helicopters carried bombing runs hitting targets with precision guided missiles.
The army has blocked all roads leading to Shakai and has also jammed all communication services to stop any communication among foreign militants. There was no official word on the number of casualties suffered by the security forces, although sources said the military had suffered at least seven casualties over the past two days.
The Director General of ISPR, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, told the TV channel that at least 20 foreign militants had been killed during the operation. A local resident told Dawn that five civilians had been killed and six wounded over the past three days.
Early on Sunday morning, suspected militants fired rockets at military posts along the Pakistan-Afghan border in Angor Adda and another post at Tanai to the east of Wana. There were no casualties from the attacks.
Meanwhile, hundreds of Afghan refugees were hard pressed to meet the 4pm Monday deadline to vacate their houses in Wana and leave for other places. The 72-hour deadline set by the authorities has caught both the Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees as well as the UNHCR by surprise.
An official in the UNHCR said they had not been officially informed about the deadline that would affect more than 50,000 refugees living in camps in Wana. The Commissionerate for Afghan Refugees said that it had got the message late on Saturday evening through a fax message.
