Up to 40 armed supporters of a pro-Taliban cleric were killed Friday as army gunship helicopters and artillery pounded their positions in Pakistan's north-west Swat valley, taking the death toll in three days' fighting up to 100, the military said. "Gunship helicopters and artillery guns engaged various positions of miscreants who were trying to run away in at least three areas they had seized previously," army's spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "Up to 40 miscreants were killed in the operations while two soldiers sustained injuries when a convoy was attacked by hand grenades," he added. The fresh casualties have taken the death toll on the parts of the Islamic extremists to 100. At least 20 died on Thursday and 40 on Wednesday, when the clashes between the government forces and the rebels resumed after around one week's unofficial ceasefire. The firefight started in the region when Islamabad sent additional troops to the region in late October to put down the rebellion instigated by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah for the enforcement of Taliban rule. Scores of people, including dozens of soldiers, have died in more than two weeks of violence. President General Pervez Musharraf has described the situation in Swat as one of the reasons for his imposition of state of emergency in the country. But the measure has not yet yielded any significant results in the scenic valley. Its major part still remains under the control of the Islamic militants, who have seized at least three major town in the mountainous region.
