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Suicide bomber kills 6 in NW Pakistan Swat valley
By Junaid Khan
MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suicide bomber rammed a car packed with explosives into a police checkpoint in the volatile Swat valley in northwest Pakistan on Sunday, killing at least six people including two children and a policeman.
The attack, near Swat's main town of Mingora, came a day after the military said it had cleared the scenic valley of most militants led by a firebrand pro-Taliban cleric, whose insurgent followers had clashed with troops in the area for weeks.
The attacker was driving from Matta, a town known as a militant stronghold, to Mingora.
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"Two children, three civilians and a policeman were killed. One policeman was wounded," said Amjad Iqbal, a military spokesman in Swat.
Another official said nine people were killed, including three policemen.
Iqbal said the head of the bomber had been found at the site of the blast.
In a separate incident, residents said three decapitated bodies had been found near the town of Matta. Their bodies were later brought to Mingora.
A Reuters reporter saw the bodies with their hands and feet tied with ropes. Iqbal said the slain men were "local Taliban" and might have been killed by residents, but there was no independent verification.
OFFENSIVE IN SWAT
Last month, the army launched an offensive in Swat which the commander in charge said on Saturday had succeeded in clearing the militants from most of the valley, pushing cleric Maulana Fazlullah and his followers into remote valleys to the northwest.
Major General Nasser Janjua told reporters in Mingora on Saturday his troops had killed 290 militants, who he said were supported by the Taliban and al Qaeda.
A further 143 were captured in the offensive involving 20,000 troops, he added, saying six of his men had been killed.
Janjua said Fazlullah had been able to whip up a following of about 5,000 people with his calls for strict Islamic law broadcast over his private FM radio station.
But most of Fazlullah's recruits from the valley had melted back into the population since the offensive began, leaving him with a hard core of about 500 followers, including many foreigners, Janjua said.
He said some Uzbeks were with Fazlullah but declined to say where others were from.
Violence surged in Pakistan, mainly in the northwest, since a military assault on the Red Mosque, a stronghold of militants, in the capital Islamabad in July. Nearly 105 people were killed in the operation. More than 800 people have been killed in ensuing violence across the country.
Suspected militants fired four rockets in and around the airport of the main northwestern city of Peshawar on Sunday but caused no causalities, police said.
President Pervez Musharraf, a key ally in the U.S.-led war on terrorism, cited growing militancy as one of the main reasons behind imposing emergency rule on November 3. He plans to lift emergency rule on December 15, around three weeks before a general election due on January 8.
(Additional reporting and writing by Zeeshan Haider; editing by Caroline Drees)
