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August 05, 2008
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Tuesday
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Sha'aban 2, 1429
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Four more schools, govt offices burnt
By Hameedullah Khan
MINGORA, Aug 4: Militants set on fire another four girls’ schools and blew up a basic health unit and an office of the forestry department in Swat on Monday, the sixth day of a military operation in the valley.
Security forces pounded suspected militants’ positions in Matta and Kabal areas in the second phase of ‘Operation Rah-i-Haq’. There were no immediate reports of casualties.
A curfew in force in the area was relaxed from 7am to 7pm, with people facing a severe shortage of food items. The large-scale exodus from Matta and Kabal continued.
Military authorities said the operation would continue till the areas were cleared of militants. “This operation is going to be decisive,” Brig Zia Anjum Bodla, Army’s Divisional Commander, told journalists at the Circuit House in Gul Kadda.
He said that security forces would clean up the militant-infested Peochar and other areas and restore peace and rule of law.
Brig Bodla claimed that 94 militants had been killed over the past six days. Fourteen security personnel, two officers among them, and 20 civilians also lost their lives. He regretted the loss of civilian lives.
He said the operation launched at the request of the NWFP government would continue till its objectives were achieved.
He said troops were pressed into action after the militants violated the peace agreement by burning down schools and killing and abducting security personnel.
Brig Bodla said the army had undertaken 1,143 development schemes of Rs600 million in the valley and work on nearly half of them had almost been completed. He also said that the army would announce Ramazan and Eid packages.
Local people complained that the use of long-range artillery by security forces had caused civilian casualties. They said that although the killing of a key militant leader and a commander on the second day of the operation had brought some relief to the disturbed people, support for the operation would decline if civilian casualties continued to mount due to use of artillery.
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