20 dead in clashes in troubled northwest Pakistan

[Coventina]

Source: Associated Press

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Clashes between security forces and militants have left 20 people dead in northwest Pakistan over the past 24 hours, officials said Monday, in the latest violence in the troubled region.

The deadliest fighting took place in the northern Swat Valley, where the army is wrapping up an offensive against Taliban militants. The military said in a statement it killed 12 suspected insurgents in a gunbattle near the town of Dardial, while one officer died. Two more militants were killed in the village of Ghul Shah.

The violence shows that security remains fragile in Swat, even as thousands of about 2 million refugees uprooted by the military campaign there began returning home amid a government repatriation program.

Elsewhere in the northwest, insurgents ambushed police on the outskirts of Peshawar, killing four policemen, senior police official Nisar Khan said. The police were patrolling on a road that leads to the Khyber tribal region, an area that has witnessed numerous militant attacks because of its status as a supply route for U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

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