Pakistan: Militants abduct about 30 Pakistani police, troops

Militants abduct about 30 Pakistani police, troops

Tue Jul 29, 2008: PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Suspected Islamic militants abducted about 30 police and paramilitary troops in northwestern Pakistan on Tuesday, a day after three intelligence agents were killed there in an ambush, officials said. Security was deteriorating in the Swat Valley despite a peace deal reached in May between the provincial government and pro-Taliban militants. Insurgents overpowered the security forces who were manning a security post in Swat's Deolai area, police official Ismail Khan said. The army said that 27 troops and police were missing. Most were feared kidnapped, though it appeared that a few of them had managed to flee and hide, spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said. A militant spokesman, Bakht Ali Khan, claimed responsibility and accused the government of not sticking to the peace accord. "The government is not honoring the peace agreement with Taliban and the government will be responsible for any consequences," he said. "We will take revenge for any action against us." On Monday, Ismail Khan said militants ambushed a pickup truck and shot three intelligence agents inside. Abbas blamed followers of Mullah Fazlullah — a pro-Taliban cleric who last year took control of large tracts of Swat until an army operation drove militants out. Ali Khan, a spokesman for Fazlullah, also claimed responsibility for the killings, saying it was revenge for the alleged torture of militants in the custody of security forces. In other unrest in the Swat Valley, security forces traded gunfire Tuesday with militants after a military convoy came under attack, Ismail Khan said. There was no report of casualties. He said militants also burned down a girls school in Khawaza Khela town — the latest in a series of such arson attacks, apparently motivated by a fundamentalist opposition to girls' education. Swat lies in an area of northwestern Pakistan that has increasingly come under the sway of Islamic militants as the government's grip on the region has weakened. Last year, the army launched a major operation that banished militants to the mountains, but since the May deal they have re-established their presence in the valley. Pakistan is facing increasing Western pressure to act against Taliban and al-Qaida strongholds in its frontier regions with Afghanistan, amid concern its policy of seeking peace gives militants more freedom to operate and launch attacks on U.S. and NATO forces over the border.