July 31, 2008	Thursday	Rajab 27, 1429

SWAT, July 30: Security forces killed 25 Taliban and lost a major, a non-commissioned officer and three soldiers after they moved into Matta tehsil of Swat on Wednesday to flush out the entrenched militants.

The administration imposed a round-the-clock curfew for an indefinite period in the district.

According to officials, the forces, backed by helicopter gunships, attacked militants throughout the day and pounded their hideouts, inflicting heavy casualties.

Sources said the major, a subedar and three soldiers were killed in a clash in Sar Banda, about 12 miles from Mingora, early in the morning.

They said a suspected mastermind of suicide attacks, Hussain Ali alias Toor Mulla, and Taliban commanders Abdul Rehman and Ibne Aqeel were killed in a clash near Wanay Bridge.

Intelligence officials said Toor Mulla had planned the suicide attack on an army recruitment centre in Dargai on Nov 8, 2006, that had left 42 recruits dead.

He was also believed to have played a key role in the suicide bombing in Peshawar on Jan 27 last year in which police officer Malik Mohammad Saad was killed.

Local Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan denied that Toor Mulla had died, but people in Peochar said his funeral was held at 3pm.

At least 23 militants wounded in a mortar attack were taken to a basic health unit in upper Shor near Peochar.

Local people said the Taliban had suffered heavy casualties in the clashes.

Government and army officials said a decision had been taken to flush out the militants from the area. “We have been given three months to clean up the area,” an officer said.

An official in Peshawar said “the militants were looking for an opportunity to wriggle out” of the peace agreement.

“We will revive the agreement when the militants accept our terms,” he said.

The militants blew up a motel of the Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation and an army rest-house in Malam Jabba. The motel built by the Austrian government had been burnt down a couple of months ago.

A government girls’ school in Guli Bagh and a bridge in the Gora area were also blown up.

Militants felled trees along the Matta-Mingora road to stop security forces from entering the area.

A group of militants encircled the Matta police station but ran away when an army unit moved in and attacked them.

The Taliban spokesman said six militants were injured in the clash, but the security forces were not letting them to be taken to a hospital.

An ISPR release said about 70 militants launched an attack on a security post at Ucharal Sar, west of Chuprial, in Matta tehsil early on Wednesday morning. The troops repulsed the assailants who left behind the bodies of 25 of their colleagues and many injured. One officer, one junior commissioned officer and three soldiers died in the clash, it said.

However, the Taliban spokesman claimed that “only one Talib and more than 30 security personnel had been killed in the clash.

“The morale of our fighters is high and they will continue to fight till the military forces are ousted from the region,” he said.

“We are waiting for (Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief) Baitullah Mesud’s orders to use our suicide bombers to avenge the government action,” he said.

He urged provincial Senior Minister Bashir Ahmed Bilour and all elected representatives from the Malakand region to resign or ‘face consequences’.

Meanwhile, spokesman for the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Maulvi Omar, told Dawn in Bajaur that the “peace deal has no legal and ethical standing” after the government action.

He threatened that the Taliban would intensify attacks on the government across the country because it had violated the peace agreement by launching a military operation in Swat.

“If the government does not halt its action then the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan will start its activities not only in the Frontier province but in the entire country. We consider the military operation in Swat an action against all Taliban,” he said.

He said the central leadership of the Tehrik would soon formulate its strategy.