Source: The Associated Press

By MATTHEW PENNINGTON
The Associated Press
Tuesday, February 26, 2008; 4:16 AM

UCHRAI SAR, Pakistan — Hardcore militants who seized Pakistan’s most scenic valley are still holed up in its snowy heights, three months after President Pervez Musharraf sent in the army to show his resolve against spreading Islamic extremism.

Down below, life in the towns that dot the Swat Valley has returned to something approaching normality. But bombings persist and Mullah Fazlullah, the firebrand cleric behind last year’s Taliban-style uprising, remains at large.

In November, the army launched one of its biggest operations since Pakistan threw its support behind the U.S.-led war against terrorism six years ago. On Monday, the military ferried journalists by helicopter to three mountaintop positions to show the territory its more than 10,000-strong force has retaken.

“About 90 percent of the area has been cleared of the (militants), and only about 10 percent, pockets of resistance, are remaining,” said army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. “They have taken to the heights. Hopefully those areas will be taken back soon.”

Fazlullah leads a banned extremist group that sent reinforcements for the Taliban when U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

In Swat, he used his own FM radio station to preach a harsh brand of Islam and won a large local following by pressing for the introduction of Islamic law in the poorly policed region.

He took up arms in July, calling for holy war against the government, and used his thousands of followers to seize a string of towns, scattering outgunned police and erecting “Taliban station” signboards outside former police stations.

The militant takeover was a shocking reflection of how Musharraf’s government had lost control of tracts of the conservative northwest. Swat, formerly known as a tourist retreat and dubbed the “Switzerland of Asia” for its glorious Alpine scenery, became a no-go zone.

Officials accused Fazlullah’s long-haired, bearded followers of imposing a reign of terror, shuttering schools for girls and beheading locals who opposed them. They suspect that the militants, apparently supported by some foreign fighters with suspected links to al-Qaida, were positioning themselves to block the Karakorum Highway that links Pakistan and China.

Maj. Gen. Nasser Janjua, commander of the military operation, said troops backed by helicopter gunships and artillery took control of key militant positions and chased the fleeing fighters, mostly locals. He claimed that some shaved their beards and were nabbed as they tried to escape.

At one mosque, troops found concealed in the ceiling a horde of chemicals, explosives and other equipment for making bombs. Elsewhere, they found and destroyed a jeep packed with explosives, apparently primed for a suicide attack.

In all, the operation has left at least 11 soldiers, 19 civilians and about 230 militants dead, Janjua said. But he said the army had had little success in tracking the militant leaders, including Fazlullah, thought to be hiding somewhere in Swat or a tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

While residents, at least in the valley’s main town of Mingora, say they now feel more secure, the threat of attack persists. Janjua said a nighttime curfew was still necessary because of fears of targeted killings by militants of government supporters.

At Uchrai Sar, where a 600-strong army deployment is based on a spectacular mountain ridge at the northwestern end of the Swat Valley, machine-gunners sit in dry stone bunkers scattered amid the pine forest. The camp lies near two of the four remaining “hotspots” in the valley, Beha and Piochar, where a hardcore of a few dozen militants are believed to have fled after they were dislodged in early January.

Battalion commander, Lt. Col. Nadir Hussain, said there had been no major attacks on security forces for the past two months in the area, and elections here passed off peacefully last week.

But in a reminder of the continuing threat, he pointed to a mountainside where a roadside bomb hit a wedding party just a mile away on Friday, killing 12 people.

At another key mountaintop position, Shangla, the local police chief recalled how in November, his 250 officers had escaped their 10 posts in the district for fear they would be “captured and slaughtered” by Fazlullah’s men.

“The militants came in the hundreds. It was impossible for 20 men to defend the posts and the public,” Mohammed Iqbal said. “We are trained for fighting crime, not guerrilla war and insurgency.”

The police force has been doubled and given new equipment but officials say the battle against Fazlullah can only be won if his fighters can find neither sanctuary nor recruits among locals. The army relies on villagers for intelligence.

The locals “have not started fighting (the militants) yet, but at least they have started resenting them, telling them, ‘Please go away,’” Janjua said.

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Tags: Army, Militants, Musharraf, swat, Taliban, terrorism, War