Pakistani forces battle Islamist militants in border region

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani forces fought pitched battles with insurgents yesterday in a scenic northwestern valley, leaving dozens dead. The violence came on a day when the Supreme Court indicated that President Pervez Musharraf's election to a new term will remain in legal limbo for at least a couple of more weeks.

Pakistan has been grappling in recent months with a growing Islamic insurgency and an uneasy transition toward democracy after eight years of military rule under Musharraf. The surging violence and the uncertainty surrounding Musharraf's future have revived speculation that he will declare a state of emergency, allowing him to postpone parliamentary elections planned for early 2008.

The Swat Valley, once a popular tourist destination in the country's northwest, has become the latest front in the war between Pakistani troops and Islamist insurgents. Following a tense truce earlier in the week, fighting picked up Wednesday night and continued yesterday, with the government claiming that as many as 70 insurgents had been killed. There were no immediate reports of deaths on the government's side, although an insurgent spokesman claimed that his group had taken about 40 troops hostage.

"Early in the morning, Pakistani helicopters deployed a group of soldiers on the mountain of Khwazakhela," said Maulana Siraj Uddin, the spokesman. "They were soon surrounded by our fighters, and now they are under our control."

He said insurgents had also taken two foreigners hostage, although he said it was "premature to say about their nationalities."

The government would not confirm either assertion.

The fighting has sparked an exodus from Swat, with villagers packing their belongings and fleeing. Days and nights in the valley have been punctuated by massive explosions, as well as by buzzing helicopters that have strafed insurgent positions.

The government is fighting to retake control of the valley, which over the past year has come under the sway of fundamentalist cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who is allied with both the Taliban and Al Qaeda. With a pirate FM radio signal and an army of thousands of heavily armed fighters, Fazlullah has imposed an extreme interpretation of Islamic law on a large swath of territory in Swat. He continued to broadcast his message yesterday, despite the government's offensive.

The fighting came as a suicide bomber attacked a busload of air force employees in the central Pakistani city of Sargodha. Ten people died and 40 were wounded.

It was the latest in a string of suicide blasts in recent weeks, several of which have struck far from the troubled border region that is considered the heart of Pakistan's Islamic insurgency. The deadliest strike came in Karachi last month, when at least one bomber detonated himself in a crowd of supporters cheering former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. The attack killed 140 people and injured several hundred others.