MINGORA: About 10,000 people of Kabal tehsil assembled at Saidu Sharif airport on Thursday and decided to raise a lashkar to help security forces clear the area of militants. Many in the gathering, witnesses said, carried weapons.

Kabal Operation Commander Brig Salman Akbar and other military officers, Swat Qaumi Jirga’s chief Syed Inamur Rehman and leaders of various parties attended the event.

It was decided that a lashkar of 12,000 volunteers would be raised to patrol the area.

Tribal elders said that youngsters below the age of 16 would not be registered in the lashkar.

Brig Akbar said that the army would fully support the lashkar. He said the militancy had been eliminated and the people of Swat would never be displaced again.

‘Militants have two options; they will either go to prison or be killed,’ he said, adding that peace had been restored in the valley.

Gohar Ali Gohar adds: At least eight militants, three foreigners among them, were killed in a clash with security personnel in the Dergai area of Malakand district on Thursday. Three soldiers were injured.

According to officials, the militants attacked a convoy of security forces near a camp of Afghan refugees when the area was being searched following reports about presence of suspects near Dergai Canal.

The bodies were handed over to the Malakand Levies and later buried. Weapons were also seized during the operation.

On Wednesday night, militants killed two members of a peace committee, Momin Khan and prayer leader Maulvi Fazal Ghafar, in an attack on the house of Pur Dil Khan, the chief of the committee, in the Seer area.

APP adds: According to the ISPR, three terrorists surrendered in the Kuh area of Swat.

Two Afghan nationals were held in Kabulgram with forged Pakistani national identity cards.

Three terrorists surrendered in Bar Shaur, nine in Chuprial, two in Matta and six children along with their parents in Runial. Six suspects were apprehended in Shingrai.

Security personnel searched two caves in Nilwe Babe Ziarat.