(AKI) - Pakistani security forces killed at least seven people including two Taliban commanders and two children in fresh shelling in the troubled northwest Swat Valley, the Geo News television channel reported on Thursday. Unnamed sources cited by Geo News said the military pounded several different areas of Swat on Thursday. claiming to have killed two key Taliban commanders in the Kozabandi area of Tehsil Kabbal.
The commanders were reportedly brothers, Younus and Zia-ur-Rehman. Bombs targeted several houses, killing five people including a husband and wife and their two children, and injured several others.
Local political leader, Siraj Khan, whose mother and sister were injured in the shellings, told Geo News that several houses had been destroyed.
Also on Thursday, at least three people were killed and six others injured as fighting between warring rival tribes continued in the Kurram Agency tribal area bordering Afghanistan. Mortar missiles, rockets and automated weapons were being used in fighting involving militants in some areas Kurram Agency including the Pewar area, Geo News reported.
Meanwhile, the death toll in month-long fighting between Pakistani security forces and militants in the restive northwest has risen to 700 including 400 militants. Local people in the region have had severe problems in getting food, medicine, fuel and other essentials, as roads have been closed for a year. Those caught up in the fighting tribes are also finding it difficult to observe the Ramadan fast, Geo News said.
Member of Parliament from Kurram Agency, Sajid Hussain Turi said that militants were taking part in fighting and law and order had been destroyed.
Meanwhile, on Wednesday at least 20 people were killed in an attack by US-led coalition forces on the village of Musa Neka Ziarat in the South Waziristan tribal area near the Afghan border, Pakistani daily Dawn reported. The number of victims from the attack was higher than previously estimated and included women and children. It was the first known ground assault of its kind and came amid an increase in the number of missile and predator attacks on suspected Al-Qaeda hideouts in recent days, according to Dawn.