Six civilians died when several artillery rounds fired by security forces hit a residential area in Pakistan's tribal belt by Afghanistan while the army said Sunday it had seized 76 Islamic militants in its offensive in the nearby Swat valley, according to dpa. Two rounds of artillery hit two houses in a village near Miranshah, the main city in North Waziristan, which is considered a hotbed of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants who fled there from Afghanistan after the US-led invasion in 2001. Six people including a three-year-old child and three women died in the incident, a local government official said. The troops were retaliating after pro-Taliban militants first attacked a security check post with rockets, added the official who spoke on condition of anonymity. Four more shells landed in a nearby village partially damaging three houses and injuring 12 civilians and two critically. In recent months, tribal rebels have conducted several raids on around 100,000 soldiers deployed by Islamabad to prevent militants from launching cross-border attacks into Afghanistan on US-led international forces. Meanwhile, Pakistan's military said Sunday that at least 76 armed Islamic militants had been captured in an ongoing army action offensive in the restive Swat valley in neighbouring North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) during the last 10 days. Of these, 26 were apprehended on Sunday as security forces conducted raids on three places. The captured included foreign fighters from Afghanistan and Uzbekistan in a new offensive to regain control of the region, which was once a popular tourist area, but was overrun by pro-Taliban militants, said chief Army spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad. "It's going well," he said, adding, "Presently we're consolidating. There was a need for some artillery fire on some rebel positions west of Matta (town)." The government last month sent additional troops to the valley, only four hours drive from Islamabad, to rein in around 5,000 armed followers of radical Muslim cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who is fighting to impose strict Islamic law. Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are believed to be assisting them. Fazlullah's armed followers had captured dozens of villages and at least three main towns in Swat, including a police station in Matta, renaming it the "Taliban Police Station." The Bush administration views Musharraf as a key ally in the fight against terrorism, in particular al-Qaeda and Taliban forces been regrouping along the border with Afghanistan. Opposition leader Benazir Bhutto on Sunday warned that if Islamabad failed to control Islamic militancy in tribal areas and NWFP then "foreign forces can come there." "Will the world look on as spectators if the militants continue their advance from tribal belt into the settled area and then Kahuta (where country's main nuclear installation lie) fall into their hands," she said at a press conference in Peshawar. Musharraf was forced to act after citing growing terrorism and Islamic militancy as the reason for declaring the state of emergency on November 3.
