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Taliban kidnap 30 policemen in Swat valley in Pakistan
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by Sanjay Jha | February 4, 2009 at 12:48 am
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Thirty Pakistani policemen are reported to have been captured by Taliban fighters in the northwest Swat Valley after they laid siege to a police station.
Army troops were sent to the Shamozai area in an effort to rescue the police officers but the operation was suspended after dusk fell, security officials said.
Thousands of Taliban laid siege to the police station in the area of Shamozai on Tuesday.
The army was mobilised to rescue the police and break the circle of Taliban militant surrounding the building, security officials said.
Clashes continued throughout Tuesday but as dusk fell, the operation had to be suspended. During the night Taliban broke into the police office, kidnapped the officers and then blew up the building, Khan told AFP.
An intelligence official based in Peshawar said late Tuesday that four paramilitary and police officers were wounded in clashes with Taliban militants who surrounded the station in Shamozai
Pakistan's most famous tourist heaven has turned into valley of fear. Swat valley is considered as Switzerland and remains the most picturesque tourist spot in the country, it now conjures up fear and lurking danger. Fighting in Swat valley has also triggered mass exodus. Thousands of civilians are fleeing from fighting in northwest Pakistan's Swat valley.
A tearful Ikramullah said seven of his relatives had been killed on Sunday when his village of Chalis Palow in the valley's Charbagh district, was shelled.
He said he was taking his family to stay with relatives in the Mardan region of North West Frontier Province.
Another man from Charbagh, Samiullah, 36, said most people had left his village and there was no one left to offer funeral prayers for those killed in the fighting.
People were burying their relatives in the yards of their homes, Samiullah said.
The scenic Swat valley, only 130 km northwest of the capital, Islamabad, was until recently one of Pakistan's prime tourist destinations.
Now the valley is on the front line of the country's struggle against Islamist militancy and has become a test of the government's resolve to check the spread of the Taliban.
Militants from Taliban and al Qaeda enclaves on the Afghan border infiltrated into the valley to support a radical cleric, Mullah Fazlullah, and began batting the security forces in 2007.
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at 22:41 on May 10th, 2009
President Obama are you paying attention to Pakistan's result after "sitting down and talking to their adversaries" ? Pakistan's government played "Let's Make a Deal my Muslim Brethren" with the Taliban and Al Qaeda. The results of the effort are in, Taliban forces are less than 60 miles of the Capital, and less than that from Nuclear Weapons storage facilities. These are terrorist thugs that have hijacked the Quran and defiled the religion of Islam with their perverse interpretations.
These Islamofascists respect no borders nor national identity or sovereignity. They only know hate, killing and terror. They only respect power and force in a quantity and ferocity able to kill them and stop them.
They are not trustworthy, and they warrant no consideration for discussion or the opportunity to legitimize any position they advance by granting credibility to their agenda for an audience to present their views, aims, and agenda.