Source: Daily Dawn(Pakistan)
Deadly clashes flared again overnight in Mingora, the main town in Swat, the one-time ski resort where local officials said armed Taliban have defied curfews and occupied government buildings, making a mockery of the peace deal.
Witnesses said ‘large numbers’ of residents fled in panic, although the military swiftly withdrew its evacuation order — saying the government was not ready to authorise an offensive.
‘We have now suspended this order and people are directed not to vacate their homes because the government has no immediate plan to launch an operation in these areas,’ said local military spokesman Major Nasir Khan.
The provincial government said it was scrambling to shelter up to 500,000 people they expect to flee Swat and local officials confirmed Wednesday that tens of thousands had streamed out of the district in less than 24 hours.
‘More than 40,000 have migrated from Mingora since Tuesday afternoon,’ said Khushhal Khan, the chief administration officer in Swat.
‘An exodus of more than 40,000 people is the minimum number — it should actually be more than 50,000,’ said an intelligence official.
Khan said a camp had been set up for the displaced in the nearby town of Dargai.
He said security forces could soon attack the militants and urged people to get out of harm’s way. But he later said the fear of fighting had passed and people could stay home, while the army said it was in control of the town.
Bedraggled men, veiled women and children piled onto pick-up trucks and led animals through streets in their haste to flee Swat, devastated by a nearly two-year Taliban insurgency to impose sharia.
‘I don't want my unborn baby to have even the slightest idea what suicide attacks and bomb blasts are. That's why I'm leaving Mingora with my husband,’ said a sobbing and heavily pregnant Bakht Zehra.
‘For God's sake tell me where I can bring up my child where there are no suicide attacks,’ she cried.
‘Zehra and I had a love marriage. I don’t want to die. I want to live for my wife and my baby,’ said her 25-year-old husband, Adnan Ahmad, who had a mobile phone shop in Mingora and is studying for a degree in English literature.
‘We are leaving the area to save our lives,’ said Sayed Iqbal, a 35-year-old cloth merchant who was putting household goods in a pick-up already loaded with his elderly parents, wife and two children.
‘I’m taking my family to Peshawar because if there’s any fighting, no one can protect us,’ said Mohammad Karim, as he searched for a bus heading out of the valley to Peshawar.
Pakistan's military has been pressing a fierce offensive in neighbouring districts of Swat, where armed militants advanced despite the February deal, raising expectations of a renewed operation in Swat itself.
Panic and confusion spread through Mingora on Tuesday after the military issued — but then swiftly withdrew — an evacuation order, and clashes between security forces and the militants broke out.
Khan said Taliban militants overnight seized control of several buildings and that four civilians were killed in the town — three in a mortar attack and one shot dead by security forces.
‘They are patrolling in the streets in Mingora and occupying many official buildings, including a police station and a commissioner's office, which houses offices of top police and administration officials in Saidu Sharif,’ he said, adding that the militants were also laying mines.
Local police said Wednesday that the militants had vacated the buildings and dispersed into the mountains, similar to rugged terrain in neighbouring districts where they are fighting guerrilla-style against the military.
Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said the militants were in control of ‘90 per cent’ of the valley and said their actions were in response to army violations of the peace deal such as attacking insurgents and boosting troop numbers in the region.
He accused the government of acting under pressure from the US. ‘Everything will be OK once our rulers stop bowing before America,’ he told The Associated Press by phone, adding the peace deal had ‘been dead’ since the operation in Buner.
(Source Daily Dawn - Pakistan 6th May 2009)
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