Troops enter Mingora, fierce street fights erupt

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani security forces entered Mingora, the Swat Valley's main city, on Saturday and killed at least 17 Taliban militants as a new phase of their offensive against the militants began, the military said.

Chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said parts of Mingora had already been cleared and that 17 militants, including an important commander, were killed during the most recent fighting of Pakistan's northwest offensive.

The ground assault on Mingora, a city with an estimated population of around 300,000 - of whom many have fled - marks the most crucial part of the military's blistering offensive against the Taliban in the scenic valley.

'Today the most important phase of operation Rah-e-Rast, the clearance of Mingora, has commenced,' the military said in a statement on its website.

'In the last 24 hours, security forces have entered Mingora; 17 miscreants-terrorists, including important miscreant commander were killed,”added the statement, written in English.

The military reported intense exchanges of fire and said one would-be suicide bomber was shot dead and that another 'suicide vehicle' rigged with explosives had been destroyed.

Pakistani troops had been slowly tightening their encirclement of the city for days and Abbas said Saturday that militant supplies had been cut off.

'Mingora was surrounded from four directions and militant supplies were cut off,' Abbas told a news conference.

The prospect of an assault on Mingora, which has loomed for days, has raised fears of a bloody battle and the possibility of civilian casualties.

US-based Human Rights Watch earlier this week quoted residents as saying the Taliban had mined Mingora and 'prevented many civilians from fleeing, using them as 'human shields' to deter attack.'

The group also said Pakistani forces 'appeared to have taken insufficient precautionary measures in aerial and artillery attacks that have caused a high loss of civilian life.'

Pakistani commanding officers have stressed that soldiers are under top-level orders to avoid collateral damage and not to use either artillery or air strikes in built-up areas.