ISLAMABAD - At least 40 militants loyal to a pro-Taliban cleric were injured Monday after Pakistani artillery pounded their bases in a troubled northwestern valley, the military said.
The security forces targeted two militant compounds in the Kot Nawakally area of Swat Valley with artillery guns in an ongoing operation against insurgent advances over the past few months.
"Local sources have confirmed that forty militants got injured in this operation," the Inter-Services Public Relations directorate said in a statement.
It further said that the security forces had requested the residents of Dagai and Akhund Kalai to vacate the area, so that during operations against militants in these areas civilian casualties are avoided.
Military officials have said that about 120 rebels had been killed in the past few days, with five soldiers also dying in the clashes.
Swat, a former tourist spot, has been partly overrun by followers loyal to hardline cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who is demanding the imposition of harsh Islamic Sharia law.
President Pervez Musharraf, who cited growing militancy as one of the key reasons for declaring emergency rule on November 3, has ordered the military to flush militants out the area.
Major General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, the army's director general of military operations, said Saturday that a major operation to clear militants from the valley could be launched "any time."
He said the valley would be reopened to tourism by the end of December.
Unrest erupted in Swat in July when Fazlullah launched a campaign for the imposition of harsh Sharia law. He is nicknamed "Mullah Radio" because he runs a pirate FM radio station that calls for a holy war on government forces.
mmg/pst
11/19/2007 15:40 GMT