Mingora - Pakistani jets bombed suspected militant positions in the northwest Swat valley on Friday as hundreds of thousands of people continued to flee the area. The government claimed at least 140 militants had been killed in in the past 24 hours in Swat and threatened to step up its military offensive.
Addressing a media conference late Friday, army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas said security forces would remain in the valley until the government had re-established control. "The army is now engaged in a full-scale operation to eliminate miscreants," Athar Abbas said. "They are on the run and trying to block the exodus of civilians from the area." While it was impossible to confirm the death toll independently, Pakistani security forces were conducting ongoing operations across three districts — Swat, Buner and Lower Dir — in northwest Pakistan .
The United Nations has warned that the Swat offensive is causing a humanitarian crisis with up to 300,000 already displaced or about to flee the fighting. As jets and helicopters pounded targets in the valley, the UN said it was threatening to become one of the world's biggest displacement crises. Security forces carried out a massive air operation and sent fresh troops into Swat after prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani announced that ‘decisive steps would be taken’ to address the growing militancy.
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http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=3.0.3293988162
......miscreants....
Now that’s a term for the bad guys we haven’t heard applied to Taleban fanatics