(Adds other incidents, background) MINGORA, Pakistan, Oct 17 (Reuters) - Pakistani warplanes killed about 60 Islamist militants in a strike in the northwestern Swat Valley on Friday, the military said. "Jet fighters pounded positions of the militants and killed 60 of them. Two of their training camps were also destroyed," military spokesman Major Nasir Ali said. The report could not be independently verified. Security forces have been fighting loyalists of a pro-Taliban cleric, Mullah Fazlullah, who has led a violent campaign to impose Taliban-style laws in Swat, a mountain valley once popular with tourists, for more than a year. Government forces also launched an offensive against the militants in the nearby Bajaur tribal region on the Afghan border in August. Air strikes killed 12 militants there on Friday, a paramilitary official said. Pakistani tribal areas on the Afghan border are regarded as safe havens for militants linked to al Qaeda and the Taliban and violence has surged there since government forces launched military operations against them. The militants have responded with suicide bomb attacks, including one on a top hotel in the capital, Islamabad, last month that killed 55 peoples, and kidnappings. The military said on Friday one of the two Chinese telecommunication engineers kidnapped in northwestern Dir district by Taliban militants along with two Pakistanis has been rescued after seven weeks in captivity. (Reporting by Junaid Khan; writing by Zeeshan Haider; Editing by Angus MacSwan)
Afghan refugees flee from the troubled Bajaur tribal region in Pakistan October 17, 2008. Pakistani authorities have begun expelling Afghan refugees from a tribal region that has become the main battleground ...
