Stray mortar attack kills seven of a family in Swat valley

Peshawar: A mortar shell hit a house in a northern valley where security forces are battling Islamist militants, killing a family of seven, police said yesterday.

The shell landed in Deolai, a village in the restive Swat valley, on Wednesday night said Shakoor Khan, a police official in the nearby town of Kabbal. A man named Mohammad Tahir was killed - as were his wife and five children, Khan said by telephone.

It was unclear who fired the mortar round.

"There had been heavy shelling overnight and when we woke up in the morning we saw Fasihul Ehsan's house destroyed; when the rubble was removed all the seven people in the house were dead," said Jehanzeb Khan, who described himself as a relative of Ehsan.

Two other men died when shells hit their houses in Deolai, while a young boy and a man working in a garden were killed in nearby Matta district, police and intelligence officials said.

Curfew relaxed

A man was also killed after being caught in the crossfire between militants and security forces at a golf course in the town of Kabal, they said, adding that a total of 25 people were also wounded in the fighting.

The police official also said that militants had razed a girls school in the Khwazkhela area, the latest in a string of similar attacks blamed on fundamentalists.

Trouble flared in Swat on Tuesday when militants abducted 25 members of the security forces. Since then, fighting has reportedly killed 27 rebels and seven troops and raised doubts about the new government's ability to combat militancy.

The army reported sporadic overnight gunfire in the valley. It didn't confirm media reports of renewed fighting yesterday. A curfew in the valley was relaxed for two hours before noon to allow residents to buy provisions.

Meanwhile fighting flared between government troops and Taliban militants in the Swat valley yesterday, leaving at least 15 militants dead, officials said.

Helicopter gunships pounded militant positions in the valley in a second day of fighting which has brought a two-month-old peace deal in the former tourist area to the brink of collapse.

Officials and militants in Swat blame each other for violating the peace accord, though neither side has declared the agreement dead.

"From our side, the Swat peace agreement is still intact. We are honouring this agreement," said provincial government spokesman Mian Iftikhar Hussain.

Followers of Mullah Fazlullah, a militant cleric who rallies support using a pirate FM radio station, seized parts of Swat last year before an army offensive drove them into the mountains.

The valley lies just 140 kilometres from Islamabad and is a vital test of the government's resolve to contain Taliban-style militancy.

Fort abandoned

In another development that may dismay some Western observers, the military announced it was abandoning an oft-attacked fort in South Waziristan, another militant stronghold.

Major General Alam Khattak, who commands paramilitary troops along the frontier, said security forces were leaving Ladha Fort at the request of tribal elders.

Khattak said the fort, which will be turned into a 20-bed hospital, was too close to residential areas and the military was negotiating for a site to build a new fort.

He didn't say if the pullback was a condition for a peace deal with local tribes, which include top Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, but added, "The fighting phase is over in his area, and now negotiations are being held with the people."