SWAT, Nov 14: Security forces, backed by helicopter gunships, mounted severe attacks on Wednesday on positions of militants who are in control of the Shangla district headquarters Alipur. According to sources, 14 people, most of them militants, were killed and 21 others were injured.

An Inter Service Public Relation (ISPR) press release said the security forces had killed 16 militants in three different areas and arrested four militants.

(An AFP report quoted the army as saying that at least 33 militants and two troops were killed in fighting in the troubled region on Wednesday. Seventeen of the militants died when their vehicle, targeted by security forces, rolled down a hill, and the others were killed in separate clashes, military spokesman Major-General Waheed Arshad said. He said the two soldiers were killed by a rocket fired at the Saidu Sharif airport.)

Mingora and others parts of the restive Swat district wore a deserted look on Wednesday because of a curfew which was imposed from midnight on Tuesday till Wednesday noon.

Witnesses said that the militants blew up a bridge at Baila Baba near Alpuri to stop the security forces advancing from Bisham, another major town of Shangla in the northeast of Alpuri.

They said that six militants were killed in a heavy exchange of fire with law-enforcement personnel near Alpuri.

Some people in Koza Bandai area, a stronghold of the militants, told Dawn that an artillery shell struck a house, killing a woman and injuring six other people. Another shell destroyed another house in the area, killing a boy and injuring five other people.

Intense shelling was continuing till midnight in Koza Bandai, Bara Bandai and Imam Dehri, all strongholds of Maulana Fazlullah.

During an exchange of fire near the Saidu Sharif airport, one member of the security forces was killed.

Witnesses said that four people, including a woman, were killed when helicopter gunships shelled Hazara Village. A minor girl was killed when her home was hit by a mortar shell in Shakardara area of the Matta tehsil.

The ISPR refuted the claim and said that four militants had been killed when the gunships engaged them and targeted their positions in the Hazara village.

The ISPR press release also said that six militants were killed when security forces bombed positions of the militants.

It said that four militants had been arrested by security forces at the Hazara Bridge checkpoint. A large number of hand-grenades and mobile telephone sets were seized.

The press release said that six militants were killed when they tried to attack the checkpoint to get their accomplices freed.

Local people said that helicopter gunships hit a car which overturned and fell into a ravine in Shangla Hill area, killing a man and injuring three other people.

Unconfirmed reports said that a vehicle carrying at least 17 militants overturned in the area, killing or injuring all occupants of the vehicle.

Prices of essential commodities have gone up in Mingora and adjoining areas because of the curfew. A large number of people have started leaving the affected areas.

According to reports coming from areas adjacent to the Shangla district, the native town of Federal Minister Amir Muqam, militants have been occupying government buildings including police stations for a couple of days. They also entered Lelonai Village near Alpuri, but withdrew after members of a local jirga told them to leave the area.

A local journalist told Dawn that armed militants had been patrolling all roads in Alpuri and they had destroyed the Baile Baba bridge, which connected Alpuri with Bisham and the Karakorum Highway (KKH).