Pakistan Vigilantes Claim To Have Killed 167 Taliban
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP)--Local vigilantes allied with Pakistan soldiers on
Thursday claimed to have killed at least 167 militants in two months, an
indication of the growing reach of private armies in the northwest.
Officials have said up to 1,000 villagers in Upper Dir formed a vigilante mob
two months ago to avenge a mosque bombing that killed 38 people June 5 in the
village of Hayagai Sharqai.
"We started with 200 men and now there are 3,000 people," said Malik Moatbir
Khan, the chief of the vigilante force.
"We have killed 167 Taliban militants so far in many gunfights helped by the
army," Khan said, adding that 97 volunteers were also "martyred."
There was no independent confirmation of the death toll.
Suicide and bomb attacks have killed 2,000 people in Pakistan in the last two
years. Government forces have been bogged down, fighting for years against
Taliban militants spreading out of tribal areas into settled areas.
Saddled with a standing army that lacks equipment and counter-insurgency
specialists, one of Pakistan's answers has been to arm and support tribesmen to
protect local communities.
Pakistan's Frontier Corps paramilitary had no details about death tolls, but
confirmed security forces were cooperating closely with tribal groups called
lashkars.
"The local lashkars are helping security forces close in on militants and we
have close coordination with them," a local paramilitary spokesman said.
"We are providing them with rations, vehicles and ammunition," he said.
Pakistan claims that recent fighting largely "eliminated" extremists from
three northwest districts, but many fear Taliban fighters have disappeared into
the mountains rather than been outright defeated.
Commanders say more than 1,800 militants and 166 soldiers were killed in the
latest assault, two years after the Taliban first rose up in the Swat valley
under radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah to enforce repressive Islamic laws.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
08-06-090506ET
Copyright (c) 2009 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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