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Pakistani militants respond violently to recent killings

Hundreds of militants fired rockets, killed one security official and kidnapped a school principal yesterday in a northwestern town where police had slain two men accused of recruiting students for suicide attacks, police said.

The raid underlined the strength of militants and the weakness of Pakistani authorities in a swath of territory along the Afghan border where Taliban guerrillas fighting in Afghanistan find sanctuary and the US fears that al-Qaeda is trying to regroup.

Several hundred militants launched coordinated attacks before dawn in the town of Tank, North West Frontier Province, sparking an hours-long gunbattle that left at least one member of the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary dead, local police chief Omar Hayyat said.

In a clash at the privately run Oxford Public School on Monday, police shot and killed two militants suspected of recruiting students from various schools in the area for holy war and suicide bombings. The recruiters killed one police officer with a hand grenade.

On Tuesday, militants entered the home of Farid Ullah, the principal of the boys school, snatched him and one of his brothers and drove them away in a vehicle, Hayyat said.

Mohammed Qasim, another police official in Tank, said that between 500 and 600 militants entered the town late on Tuesday and starting firing rockets at a police station and other nearby government buildings. They also set fires in two banks before withdrawing, he said.

Qasim said security forces were patrolling in the town yesterday and that efforts were under way to trace and capture the militants.

He had no information on the fate of Ullah, but a local militant said that they were questioning him to determine whether he had alerted police about the presence of their associates at the school.

"We will kill him if we found him guilty," said the militant on condition of anonymity because he didn't want security forces to know his identity.

The militant said one of their number was "martyred" in the fighting. He warned of further attacks until police released a number of associates recently arrested.
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