2007-10-26

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Oct. 26 — Pakistani security forces exchanged heavy gunfire with militants at the sprawling seminary of a powerful cleric in the troubled North-West Frontier Province on Friday, a day after a suicide bomber killed 20 people, most of them border guards, in the same area.

Armed militants meanwhile publicly executed four men thought to be police or members of local security forces in a village 10 miles west of the town of Mingora, a local resident said by telephone, asking not to be named for fear of retaliation.

The home secretary of the frontier province, Badshah Gul Wazir, acknowledged at a news briefing late in the evening that three men of the armed civil guard known as the Frontier Constabulary and one policeman, who had been kidnapped by militants from a nearby district earlier in the day, had “reportedly” been executed.

The sharp escalation of violence in the Swat valley, one of Pakistan’s most famous tourist spots and a region relatively removed from the lawless tribal areas on the Afghan border, has revealed the growing strength of Islamist extremists in the previously peaceful, more populated areas of the province.

Leading the wave of militancy is the cleric, Maulana Fazlullah, also known as Maulana Radio for his illegal radio broadcasts calling for Taliban-style Islamic law, who is thought to have some 4,500 followers. He is the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammed, the founder of Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi or the Movement for the Implementation of Mohammad’s Sharia, who has been in prison since 2001 after sending waves of Pakistanis into Afghanistan to support the Taliban in fighting American forces.

In July the government sent a division of troops into Swat to try to contain the growing violence but they have met with frequent roadside and suicide attacks. The provincial government deployed another 2,500 border guards to the area Wed. and the retaliation was swift in the suicide attack Thursday. Maulana Fazlullah has since disappeared and local residents said that he was trying to garner support from the nearby district of Kohistan.

The fighting Friday centered around Imam Dheri village, the headquarters of Maulana Fazlullah in Kabal district. Security forces and militants were holding positions on the opposite sides of the River Swat and exchanged heavy gunfire punctuated by heavy explosions. Mortar shells were fired as gunship helicopters flew overhead, local people said. Security forces have occupied hill-top positions but avoided shelling directly on the seminary, they said.

Home Secretary Wazir said the government had not started an operation against the seminary but a unit had come under fire when moving in the area. Two civilians were killed and another was wounded in crossfire, he said.

Paramilitary forces had also occupied a militant training camp situated high in the mountains in Shah Dagai in Khwazakhela sub district, residents said.

A local resident of Shakkardarra described the scene of the beheading of the four guards as “gruesome.” Masked men armed with rocket propelled grenades and assault rifles brought the four men to their village around 5 p.m., fired a few shots into the air and then beheaded them.

The four men said to be their mid-20s, all had their hands tied behind them, were pushed to the ground on the main Matta-Mingora road and had their throats cut.

“Let this serves as a warning to all those who spy for the government or extend help —the sons of Bush will meet similar fate,” the local resident quoted one of the militants making the declaration shortly before the execution.

“We watched the whole gory scene in a state of numbness,” the resident said by telephone. “We felt so helpless. There is fear and gloom in the village.”

“The bodies are still lying on the road and militants are standing nearby,” he said, adding that he feared for his own life talking to a journalist.

The residents of Shakkardarra said that militants, mostly from a banned outfit called the Jaish-i-Muhammad, or Army of Muhammad, who had set up check posts on the main road and occupied hill-top positions, had seized the four men during checking of vehicles.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killing but Maulana Naddar, a cleric said to be deputy to Maulana Fazlullah, in a broadcast on self-operated FM radio said that the men had been executed to avenge the death of three militants killed in action earlier on Friday.

As the evening came a tense calm returned to the area as the provincial cabinet met in the city of Peshawar to discuss the situation.

A senior government official requesting he not be named because he was not authorized to speak said that the government would like to engage local elders and influential residents to calm the situation and sort out the issue with Maulana Fazlullah through negotiations.

The caretaker chief minister of the province, Shamsul Mulk, told a meeting Friday that the government would pursue peaceful resolution of issues but would not desist from using force to establish its writ.

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