[Dawn] Two Taliban 'commanders' were among 20 militants killed in clashes and air strikes in Swat and Orakzai Agency on Thursday.In Swat, 13 insurgents were killed in clashes with security forces on Thursday. According to Swat media centre, security personnel came under fire when they raided a Taliban hideout in Sigram area of Koza Bandai. During an exchange of fire, 10 militants and one soldier were killed.
Detained militant commander Mohammad Naseem alias Abu Faraj was with the troops and he was also killed in the clash. Abu Faraj, a close aide of Maulana Fazlullah, was captured by security forces in September.
The terrorists killed in the clash included Luqman, Abdul Azim, Zahid, Nawab Ali, Abdul Samad, Amir Baz Khan, Saeedullah, Shafeeq Ahmed, Ali Hussain, and Shah Hussain. Their bodies were handed over to local police.
Another Taliban Commander Alamgir, and his father were killed in an exchange of fire with security forces in Bar Thana area of Matta tehsil.
Bodies of two militants, Mian Gul and Zakir, were found in Peochar and Khwazakhela, respectively.
In Dherai, security forces blew up houses of three terrorists. Security personnel also arrested 180 suspects in different areas of Swat during house-to-house searches soon after the death of ANP MPA Shamsher Ali Khan in a suicide attack in his hujra in Dherai area, the hometown of Maulana Fazlullah.
In Orakzai, seven terrorists were killed and their five hideouts and camps of insurgents were destroyed by helicopter gunships in lower Orakzai agency on Thursday.
The helicopters pounded the hideouts of TTP terrorists in Feroze Khel, Dara Garhi and Mirbak areas where members of the Tariq Afridi group of Taliban are said to be based.
Afridi is the TTP chief of Khyber Agency and Darra Adam Khel. The death toll may rise because, according to sources, the house of local TTP chief, Akhunzada Aslam Farooqui, and an ammunition depot in Feroze Khel area were razed to ground.
Official sources said that almost all suicide attacks in Peshawar had been planned in the Orakzai Agency.
Police in Kohat, meanwhile, arrested 17 suspects, two foreigners among them, in a search operation on Thursday. Police also seized eight Kalashnikovs, five shot-guns, two rifles, six pistols and hundreds of cartridges.