"Insurgents overpowered the security forces who were manning a security post in Swat Dealai region before abducting the 30 personnel," police official Ismail Khan said.
Pakistan Army said “27 troops and police” were missing. “Most are feared kidnapped, though it appeared that a few of them had managed to flee and hide,” spokesman Major General Athar Abbas added in published remarks.
A militant spokesman, Bakhat Ali Khan, said his Taliban-related group was responsibility. In a statement he accused the government of not sticking to a peace deal with Islamic militants. "The government is not honouring the peace agreement with Taliban and the government will be responsible for any consequences," he added. "We’ll take revenge for any action against us."
FOLLOWERS BLAMED
Abbas blamed followers of Mullah Fazl-Ullah – a pro-Taliban cleric who last year took control of large tracts of the Swat Valley until an army operation drove militants out. Ali khan, a spokesman for Fazl-Ullah, said militants have been “tortured” while custody of security forces.
The latest kidnapping came a day after elsewhere in the Swat Valley, Islamic militants traded gunfire with security forces on Tuesday July 29, killing two soldiers and a young girl, officials said. Local police official Ismail Khan said militants also burned down a girls’ school in Khawaza Khela Town – the latest in a series of such arson attacks, apparently motivated by a fundamentalist opposition to female education in Pakistan.
The two soldiers and young girl were killed in the area of Kabal village after an attack on a security check post, officials said. Security forces reportedly detained several suspects in a search operation of the village. Earlier this week, late on Monday July 28, insurgents ambushed officials and killed three intelligence officials as they were driving back to the Mangora region of Swat Valley. Militants also torched an office of the local health department.
The latest tensions were expected to add to concerns among especially minority Christians in the area, who say they have have received death threats from Islamic militants, while several believers were kidnapped in recent months, before being released.
