Peshawar: At least 19 persons were killed and beheaded Friday in Swat, Pakistan, between the security forces and a local militant group led by Maulana Fazlullah.
Residents of the area has said that the fighting erupted Friday noon when security forces were trying to enter Imam Dheri, headquarter of the militants, and continued till evening.
A rocket was fired from the militant headquarter before evening but it is yet to be confirmed how many people or security forces have been killed or injured by it.
A spokesman to the militant group, Sirajuddin, has confirmed that 3 of their fighters were killed and three wounded in the fighting. The other casualties were 7 civilians who were working in their fields and 9 FC men who were first arrested and then beheaded by the militants.
The militants’ spokesman confirmed that they had abducted at least 9 security men and beheaded them. ‘We paraded their beheaded bodies in the area and warned people they will meet the same consequences if they supported the government’ he told media.
Security forces who were participating in the operation were supported by gunship helicopters. This fighting started after only one day of a deadly explosion in Mingora which killed at least 33 persons, most of them security forces.
The latest reports indicate that the fighting is now stopped but people of the area are very frightened. The militants were active in the area for a long time but it seems that the security forces had given them full freehand in the start.
Till a few years ago, Swat was known as the Switzerland of Pakistan for its natural beauty and peaceful people. But then there was all of a sudden a flow of extremism and militancy which destroyed its peaceful environment and damaged all trading, educational and traveling activities.